Michael KellySt Mel’s rises from ashes after inferno
The restoration of St Mel’s Cathedral in Longford, five years after being gutted by fire, is a powerful symbol of the much-needed renewal of the Church in Ireland, Bishop Colm O’Reilly has said.
The restored cathedral opens its doors this Christmas for the first time since fire ravaged through the building in the early hours of Christmas Day 2009. At the time, a devastated Bishop O’Reilly pledged to restore the building. Now, like the phoenix rising from the ashes, St Mel’s is once again restored as the centre of worship in Longford and the Mother Church of the Diocese of Ardagh & Clonmacnoise.
Bishop O’Reilly (79) said the restoration of St Mel’s was much more than just a building or reconstruction project. “Let this be a symbol for the entire Church in a new Ireland,” Dr O’Reilly said.
“We hope that this time of darkness can transform more than just this building but the people of God,” he said.
Dr O’Reilly, a native of Longford, painstakingly oversaw the mammoth restoration project before retiring as bishop last year. His successor, Bishop Francis Duffy, presided at ceremonies marking the cathedral’s re-opening.
Speaking in an RTÉ television documentary to be broadcast over the festive season, Dr O’Reilly said that finances for the project were coming in the main from the insurance coverage that was in place on St Mel’s when it was gutted by fire. “Nothing is coming out of anybody’s pockets for this work,” he
said, “we are using the money from the insurance and that is the only use we could have made of that money – to try and restore not just a building that would be disengaged from people but something that will be part of the community in a new Ireland.”
To mark the restoration of the cathedral, RTÉ is broadcasting Midnight Mass from St Mel’s as well as the Christmas Day Mass live from the cathedral.
The RTÉ Would You Believe special documentary charters every stage of the restoration work at St Mel’s since 2010 and tells some of the remarkable stories associated with the fire – including the miraculous fate of a painting of the Holy Family that was hanging only yards from the centre of the blaze, yet escaped intact.
The 1,000-year-old bishop’s staff of St Mel was not quite so lucky. Most of the crozier was burned to cinders in temperatures that topped 1,100C at the height of the blaze.
Entitled The Longford Phoenix, the RTÉ documentary was compiled and presented by RTÉ Midlands Correspondent Ciaran Mullooly and filmed and produced by Birthe Tonseth. It goes to air on Tuesday, December 30 at 6.30pm on RTÉ 1 television.