Pull up a pew

KILKENNY:These two churches in Kilkenny are now homes – and one is on the market, writes MELOSINA LENOX-CONYNGHAM

‘O FOR A THOUSAND tongues to sing”, we implored the Almighty in the little Protestant church in Coachford in Cork when I was a child. We had every reason to put in this request, as the congregation consisted of a lady in a brown beret pulled over her ears and a drip on the end of her nose, two colonels with their ladies, and the two Miss McMullens, whose reputation was enhanced in my eyes by their owning a half rabbit, half cat – I know it is not possible, but that is what they said it was and that is what it looked like.

The music was supplied by my aunt Laura, who played the organ. It would give despairing bleats if the mind of the person who worked the pump, which was me, strayed. To my acute embarrassment and fury, as I was the only member of the congregation under 50, there were frequent children’s services when we sang: “We are but little children weak . . . ”

After I left Cork, the congregation dwindled, the church was deconsecrated and it has now been made into a house, which is happening to a growing number of these disused Protestant churches.

One couple, who have been living in a church for 10 years, are Bruno and Jacqueline Tosi, who come from Poligny in Jura, France. They are glass artists and their studio, The Glass Triangle, is where they create mirrors, lamps, jewellery, stained glass and also restore stained-glass windows. They fell in love with Ireland when spending holidays here in the 1990s and looked for a house in Kilkenny, “because of the many craft workers in the area, the good weather, the ambience and the short distance to Rosslare”, says Jacqueline Tosi. “Jacqueline was born in Brittany which gives her an affinity for everything Celtic - that is another the reason to come to Ireland,” adds Bruno. After two summers spent searching, they saw a picture of Knocktopher church in an auctioneer’s window, visited it, and made the decision to buy it there and then. It had already been deconsecrated and sold to a private owner who had intended to live in it, but had not got far in his conversion, although he had taken out the pews and most of the floors.

The roof was in good condition – it dates from the beginning of the last century when the church was damaged in a fire, but otherwise the interior was in poor shape. The Tosis were determined to use local craftsmen and their own skills to convert the church into a house.

Their show room and kiln are in the vestry, which is on the east wall, and they can use the original means of access into the body of church. The ground floor is open plan, going up to the hammer-beam roof. The kitchen is through open arches on the west side of the chancel. They have a large wood-burning stove in the chancel from which they can heat 11 radiators. The nave has a work table on one side and on the end wall Bruno’s parents have painted a mural of cliffs and sea. The other side is partitioned by carved wooden, vestigial divisions into two cubicles, which are used as a small dining room and a sitting room. The church has windows only on the south wall that have been left at full height. The Tosis have decorated them with their own stained glass.

On the side without windows there is a gallery that can be used as a spare room and in the original vestibule entrance with the main door, there is a staircase going up to the Tosis’ own bedroom that has an ensuite bathroom in the tower. There is another one beneath. The original bell still hangs in the tower.

The church makes for a pleasant, elegant living and working space that is comfortable but distinct. The Tosis have lived here for almost 10 years.

In Clomantagh, near Urlingford, there is a recently converted church, used as a family home, that the owners now wish to sell. It must be a healthy site as there are no graves, or perhaps members of the congregation were buried elsewhere. When it was bought, the church had not been in use for 50 years. Elders and brambles pressed against the walls, all the diamond panes in the windows had been broken, and although the organ was still there, it had been squashed by the falling ceiling.

Now, it has been transformed into a home, with the nave divided into two floors. It is remarkably light and bright, even though the windows have been divided horizontally. Downstairs, two open fireplaces have been added, one is in the former chancel, which has been turned into a room with comfortable chairs. The other is in the nave, which is a single large living room with limestone slabs over under-floor central heating. The modern kitchen is in a vestry that was built onto the north wall and has the back door. The entrance hall has been enlarged, incorporating a piece of the nave, and this gives space for a handsome staircase leading up to the four bedrooms with church windows to the south and two large bathrooms that are lit by skylights in the roof.

The most unusual feature is the gym, which is at the top of the tower. By the time I had climbed up the ladders to it, I was panting so much I was more in need of somewhere to lie down than a treadmill. But it is a room to inspire, with windows on four sides and wonderful views across the green countryside and down on the green lawns and trees that surround this most attractive church.

Both these churches, with their square towers and distinctive pinnacles, were erected before 1830 with the aid of grants from the Board of the First Fruits, a fund set up to build Protestant churches and glebe houses. The name is from a quotation in Exodus: “The first of the first fruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.”

It is good that these sturdy and attractive buildings are now loved and lived in and have not suffered the fate that has befallen many redundant churches that have become ruins, the hassocks made the home of mice, the leaves of the hymn books fluttering around the graveyard and the roof disintegrating.