€50,000 funding allocation for mortuary chapel an answer to Kiely’s prayers

FINE Gael councillor Sarah Kiely’s prayers have been answered as €50,000 was allocated for works on the mortuary chapel at Mount...

FINE Gael councillor Sarah Kiely’s prayers have been answered as €50,000 was allocated for works on the mortuary chapel at Mount St Lawrence Cemetery.

Cllr Kiely, who has been advocating to save the historic structure for the past seven years, welcomed the monies allotted from development levies. The City East representative also called on the Council to start taking the city’s history and heritage more seriously.

Speaking at a Metropolitan District meeting in May of last year, Cllr Kiely said that the chapel at Mount St Lawrence Cemetery had gone to “rack and ruin”. She pleaded with the local authority at the time to save the building.

In an interview with the Limerick Post , Cllr Kiely explained: “We went for funding under the Historic Structures Fund, but we didn’t get it, unfortunately. However, I’m delighted to report that as of now, €50,000 has been allocated from development levies for the mortuary chapel.”

“We really need to start taking our heritage and our history seriously in this city and I am definitely going to take up that mantle because look how beautiful that building is. It is absolutely stunning, and it’s basically gone to rack and ruin.”

The Fine Gael woman believes that the mortuary chapel at Mount St Lawrence has the potential now to be used as a civic space.

“€50,000, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t a huge amount of money, but to be honest, I’ve pushed really hard, and I’m going to commit some of my GMA (General Municipal Allocation) funding for next year to this as well.

“There’s so much potential here, plus the neglect is unbelievable. Now I’m not talking about the graveyard in general. I walked around the graveyard the other day and I visited my grandfather Sean Kiely’s grave over near the Republican plot. The place is lovely, but the chapel, we really need to get cracking on it. It could be so much more, it could be a civic space, it could be used for historic talks. We could just do so much with it,” she enthused.