LEGENDARY IRISH musician Tony Allen surveyed the charred remains of his business yesterday as gardaí searched through the debris of Roseland House in Moate, Co Westmeath.
The severely damaged property had housed six businesses including Roseland Studios, where Mick Foster and Tony Allen, Daniel O’Donnell, Mick Flavin, Brendan Shine and many other well-known known musicians have recorded.
The recording studio, in the basement of the building, contained no memorabilia but would have “an awful lot of expensive equipment”, Mr Allen remarked.
The Westmeath singer said a fire had broken out shortly before 10pm on Tuesday. “It definitely started upstairs. Smoke started coming out of one of the upstairs units last night,” he said.
The ensuing fire destroyed the roof of the premises and caused considerable damage to the entire building. The property is jointly owned by Mr Allen and business partner Thos Martin.
Luckily there was no one in the property at the time of the fire, Mr Allen said. “
Pretty much the whole building is destroyed. It will have to be knocked, the walls are all cracked. I’m not sure about the studio, but definitely the furniture and carpets upstairs, that’s all gone,” he added, following a short inspection of the premises.
Fire brigade units from Mullingar, Athlone and Kilbeggan in Co Westmeath and Clara in Co Offaly attended the scene. In an effort to quench the flames the firemen had removed part of the roof of the building. Gardaí also assisted the fire services. “We got a call at about 10.30pm last night [Tuesday] and we had to cordon off Main Street,” a Garda spokesman said.
The fire was brought under control at about 2am, but units of the fire brigade continued working at the scene until almost noon yesterday. A Garda unit is investigating the cause of the blaze.
As well as the studio, Roseland House was home to a solicitor’s practice, a furniture and carpet shop, a printing business, hairdressers and a speech and drama company.
A lifelong friend of Mr Allen and Mr Martin, Senator Donie Cassidy, visited the scene of the fire yesterday. “The best years of these two men’s lives went into that building and to see it going up in smoke, it’s soul destroying, to say the least,” he said.
The only consolation was the fact that no lives have been lost, commented Mr Cassidy.
Roseland House, a deceptively large building, used to house the local cinema.
Putting a conservative estimate on its size, Mr Cassidy said it was “at least 20,000sq ft (1,058sq m)” and covered half an acre to the rear of the premises.
Mr Cassidy said his thoughts were also with the employees, coming up to Christmas. “It is not easy. To replace that, it will take possibly two years.”