Notre Dame link with Kingscourt stained glass

Two stained glass windows installed at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Kingscourt were made using the same glass used in the rebuild of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

The one-of-a-kind stained glass windows were installed as part of a number of significant additions to mark the 150th anniversary of the church.

The stunning stained glass was created by master artist Patrick Muldowney from Kilkenny, and installed by Seamus Malone of Emerald Glass from Tullamore, his last project before retiring.

The installation was spearheaded by the Parish Finance Committee following consultations with parishioners in 2021 on suitable projects to mark the 150th anniversary of the church designed by William Hague and built under the leadership of Fr Peter O’Reilly in 1872.

The work was overseen by Vincent Galligan of local firm Niall Smith Architects, and carries on the incredible legacy of stained glass at the local church, which already boasts work by a veritable ‘who’s who’ from the stained glass art world.

Stained glass by the renowned Evie Hone (Eton College chapel) and her protégé Patrick Pollen (Christ Church Cathedral), the famed Harry Clarke studios, and in more recent years by Margaret Becker and Eoin Butler, already adorn the Kingscourt church.

As a result, Patrick, a graduate of NCAD who then worked at the Greenland Studios in New York for a number of years before establishing his own studio in Dublin, described the commission as an “honour”.

The stained glass commission was for windows in the north and south transepts, as well as the central ‘rose’ windows.

It is believed these were the only stained glass commissions of such scale made in Ireland in 2022, and the work took over 14 months to complete.

“It’s amazing, just wonderful to see a community supporting the arts like that,” praises Patrick. “To have such a rich heritage there, they’re rightfully proud of their church windows. So it was a challenge for me to come up with a design that fit with the windows already there and to tell a story as required.”

The brief was to firstly design a window dedicated to Our Lady. That had been covered already by Evie Hone and the Clarke Studios before Patrick’s arrival. So he set about designing a “new concept, a new image”.

To do that he depicted Our Lady pregnant. “I’ve never seen it before or even in Renaissance paintings, so symbolically that was amazing and I’m very thankful the Parish Committee were happy for me to do that,” he explains.

The second window on the opposite side, meanwhile, is dedicated to Creation, featuring Ulster Saints Bronach, Colmcille and Kilian.

As a personal touch Patrick included an image of his dog ‘Willow’ who died.

“She’s accompanying St Killian and the rose window above that symbolises the environment and the state of the world. The colours, the stars symbolise Ukraine, and the rose window on the opposite also represents the wheat fields of Ukraine.”

Patrick used hand-blown antique glass from a factory in the south of France called Verrerie de Saint-Just. “Some of it would have been flashed, so I would have etched it and fired it in a kiln. It’s the same glass as being used in restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral.”

Was the thinking: ‘If it’s good enough for Notre Dame, it’s good enough for Kingscourt?’

Patrick laughs in agreement. “It was a really wonderful project to be part of.”

The official unveiling of the windows took place in December.