Sir, - The proposed transfer of the Church of Ireland palace of the bishops of Ossory to the Heritage Council has drawn a degree of comment from many people, both Protestant and Roman Catholic.
Since the sixth century it has been a place entirely devoted to the worship of God. Now it is intended that a major element of this intact cathedral close should be turned into offices, thus admitting the secular world to an area of Kilkenny which has had a wholly ecclesiastical purpose for nigh on 1,500 years. This ancient collection of buildings with all its additions, is every bit as valuable as the Rock of Cashel and more demanding of our special care, as it daily performs the duties for which this enclosure was originally founded.
Could not the Heritage Council pursue the possibility of acquiring St Mary's, a redundant parish church immediately off the High Street in Kilkenny? Since the 1960s it has been used as a community hall of sorts, while its graveyard has been the illicit meeting place for vagrants, much to the detriment of the many fine medieval, Tudor and Stuart funeral monuments, which are unequalled in this island. These, alas, lie neglected, forlorn and tragically vandalised. The development of St Mary's as the Heritage Council headquarters with a concurrent restoration programme for the funeral monuments would be a major public relations exercise for this national body.
It is an unwarranted step for the Representative Church Body to dispose of the Palace. Kilkenny, which has lost so much in the past 20 years, cannot afford to let this valuable ecclesiastical precinct be broken up. It is the concern of all of us whose predecessors built and maintained this cathedral close with their alms that its current use should continue - Yours, etc.,
Melosina Lenox-Conyngham, Peter Seaver, Maurice Craig, John Kirwan, Seamus Corballis, Susan P. Mosse, Peter Somerville-Large, Tullaherin, Gowran, Co Kilkenny.