If you are looking for a place to live, of unusual serenity and character, your prayers may soon be answered. And in a more literal way than you might have thought, as the conversion of formerly religious buildings for residential use is something that we will see more of, says Ian Lumley of Dublin Civic Trust. "An astonishing number of convents are going to close over the next few years," he says, "and they are particularly suitable for conversion into apartments. Many boarding schools are closing down and will continue to. Monasteries are falling empty all over the country."
Add to that the many churches - Catholic and, particularly, Protestant - that are falling into obsolescence as congregations dwindle, and you have a potentially brimming collection basket of new homes. The seepage from the pews has been happening for years, and as their buildings are put up for sale, some of the finest pieces of church architectural heritage are being born again as bingo halls, wallpaper shops and even, heaven forbid, night clubs. Their conversion into new homes for the Celtic flock, however, is a relatively new phenomenon. Dublin has seen conversions such as that of St Kevin's Church in the South Circular Road into apartments in 1994; of St Patrick's convent into the Hybreasal apartments on the South Circular Road and of the Sisters of Charity convent in Stanhope Street into sheltered housing.
In the pipeline are conversions at the St Alphonsus convent in Drumcondra into apartments and of St Anne's convent in Milltown, also into apartments.
Convents are most suitable for conversion into living spaces says Lumley, churches being more suited to open-plan use such as for offices or shops. One who has made his home in a former house of God though is Richard Haworthe, of Trim, Co Meath. He and his wife converted the redundant church, Laracor, which they bought from the Church of Ireland in 1983. A similar sized church nowadays would probably fetch about £30,000. "Our notion was to leave it as unchanged as possible on the outside and as much like a modern house as possible on the inside," he says, though there were problems with its Gothic architectural style. "It had no ceiling - just went straight up to the rafters - and had tall narrow windows."
They put a ground floor in at the bottom of the windows and a ceiling/first floor at their top - nine foot, six inches, between the two. They widened the windows by removing their outside frame. This had the effect of doubling the light coming in. The roof had to be stripped; the boards under the slates were of damp wood which was burned; the nails were rusting and some of the rafters needed repair.
On the plus side, however, they had to replace very little apart from the roof, and they used the wood from the pews to make furniture for the kitchen. As for utilities, electricity was easily connected from a point on the road, they had to organise their own well and septic tank and they put in a solid fuel range. "Most people are delighted with it," says Haworthe of a conversion that began in February and was completed in time for Christmas 1983. "In the end," he cautions, "it cost as much as buying an ordinary house. Perhaps we could have saved by doing less work, but it's certainly not high-luxury. There is a lot more space which could be used such as the attic and the cellar. We would have liked to double-glaze all the windows."
It is difficult to estimate how many churches are unused, though the Heritage Council has begun a survey of the condition of our ecclesiastical heritage.
Terry Devey, of Heritage Properties, which carried out the conversion of St Kevin's Church in Dublin, says such projects must necessarily be partially projects of architectural interest as well as money-spinners. "Intervention in the building should not limit the integrity of the original design," he says.
In each apartment architects, Mary Donohue and Desmond Fitzgerald were careful to retain features such as arches and church windows which may have been more easily covered up or removed. Pat Nolan, director of Hamilton Osborne King - the agent which sells most of the religious properties - says that in most instances where original features are removed, it is to comply with fire and safety regulations.
Though the Churches themselves are surprisingly unconcerned what happens to their buildings once they are no longer needed to save souls, people around them care enormously. Shannon Homes, which is involved in the development of the St Alphonsus site in Drumcondra, is working closely with residents to preserve the integrity of the 1858 chapel on the site. With its Bossi marblework, it is regarded as one the finest such chapels in the country and Shannon are hoping to find a foreign buyer for the chapel.
RESIDENTIAL conversions may not suit all redundant religious buildings, though attention to modern-day safety and comfort, combined with a sensitivity to the original integrity of the buildings, should see them, in Ian Lumley's words, "really exciting and increasingly available places to live". . . rest and pray?
