Sir, - I write as an Irish art historian and archaeologist now living in England, but whose professional life has been devoted to the study of Early Christian Ireland.
Cashel has been described as "a regal acropolis, as moving as anything in Europe". From a general aesthetic point of view, interference with its peculiar and magnetic allure by re-roofing the cathedral seems as perverse as would be an attempt to replicate the pentelic marble roof of the Parthenon.
However, for the scholarly-minded visitor - and there are many - there would be other considerations. A "repro" roof would undoubtedly blur and conceal features of the original fabric. Can one imagine the National Museum welcoming reproductions of missing panels on the "Tara" brooch being attached to it? Hardly; so also with any major medieval Irish building.
Frank Prenton Jones (November 9th) invokes the restoration of Christ Church and St Patrick's Cathedrals as precedents to be followed. The analogy is, however, a false one. Cashel is not central Dublin. In its isolation it could never attract comparable throngs of worshippers. Nor would it be possible to make the cathedral usable for any continuing ecclesiastical purpose unless not only roof, but floor, window-glass, window jambs and furnishings were replaced, utterly destroying both the magic and historical interest of Yeats's "grey rock" at a cost of millions.
Cashel Cathedral is an authentic relic of a distant past which we cannot now re-create, no matter how much we would like to. We should assume the traditional Irish role of "hereditary keeper" and preserve this treasure in its original form for future generations. - Yours, etc., Dr. Niamh Whitfield,
Faroe Road, London W14.