Sir, – Frank McDonald ("Smithwick site offers massive potential for city", Home News, February 10th), refers to St Francis's Abbey being retained as part of the development plans for the site as though this were a matter of choice.
St Francis’s Abbey, the medieval Franciscan friary of Kilkenny, has been a national monument in State care (No 72) since 1880. Prior to that, this society, originally founded as the Kilkenny Archaeological Society in 1849, carried out conservation works on the building in 1869-70.
The standing remains of the friary, comprising the chancel/choir and bell tower of the church, preserve rare sculptures and are particularly significant because one of the medieval friars here, John Clyn, uniquely documented their construction by citizens of Kilkenny as the town lay in the shadow of the Black Death.
The standing remains are, of course, only part of the monument, and archaeological excavation in the 1960s uncovered the lower courses of the walls of the nave and of the large north transept. This society welcomes the acquisition of the brewery site by Kilkenny Corporation and hopes that St Francis’s Abbey will be publicly accessible again and enhanced by having more of its fabric revealed and displayed.
The friary was a pivotal building in medieval Kilkenny and its history and archaeology should be central to any proposals to develop this site.
Unfortunately, the masterplan already produced pays scant attention to this important national monument. In the 1960s a concrete yard was laid over the nave and transept; current proposals will see the erection of new buildings over these parts of the medieval church known to still survive underground. – Yours, etc,
Dr RACHEL MOSS,
President,
Royal Society of Antiquaries
of Ireland,
Merrion Square,
Dublin 2.