The £3 million restoration of the great cathedral of St Colman's in Cobh, Co Cork, in 1992 has entered its final phase, the cathedral authorities have announced.
Already major repairs as well as replacement works on the exterior of the building, regarded as one of the finest examples of neo-Gothic ecclesiastical architecture in Europe, have been carried out. The internationally famous carillon has also been restored.
The cathedral stands on a height overlooking Cobh and dominating Cork harbour from the seaward side. Its construction began in 1868 and was completed in 1918.
Canon Denis Reidy, the co-ordinator of the cathedral restoration project, said yesterday that in the final phase a new altar would be put in place and there would be some rearrangement of the interior.
He said installing a new altar was a pressing matter given that the existing altar was put in place in the 1960s after Vatican II, but was only a temporary structure built of wood.
It was unfitting, he added, that a cathedral such as St Colman's should have had a temporary altar for so long. At the same time, it was only right that the people of the diocese should be consulted about the new altar and asked to express opinions. For this reason, Bishop John Magee of Cobh had invited a wide range of parishioners to make recommendations and to advise on how best and in what form a new altar could be installed in the cathedral.
Canon Reidy said that originally it had been hoped to complete the restoration of the cathedral by New Year's Eve next, but it now seemed that this deadline would not be met.
However, the expectation was that the full restoration project would be completed in the new year.