Sir, - According to Dr Whitfield, Cashel Cathedral is an authentic relic of a distant past we can not now recreate. This is utter nonsense. Of curse we can build cathedrals in a medieval style today - it has been done several times in this century in, among other places, New York, Washington DC and Liverpool. In fact, virtually all of Ireland's Catholic cathedrals are built in one of the medieval styles, either Romanesque or Gothic. These cathedrals were built in the 19th century, the era of the Gothic Revival, when great designers and architects - Pugin, Morris and Burges, among a host of others - revived medieval styles. They didn't create relics or reproductions. They worked, as their medieval ancestors did before them and as craftsmen working in medieval styles do today, to adapt a living style to meet contemporary challenges.
It appears to be the fashion among some critics to denounce any attempt to return to the styles of the past as reproduction. I suspect the real reason for this is an unwillingness to admit that modern art and modern architecture has comprehensively failed and that the only way forward for the arts is a return to where the Gothic Revival and the Arts and Crafts movement left off. - Yours, etc., Kevin J. Dodd,
Ballydoogan, Sligo.
