Letters to the Editor: View of Kilkenny Castle leaves tourist with pane-free memories

Dear Editor,
On a recent visit to Ireland from my home in Florida, I had the pleasure of visiting the beautiful city of Kilkenny.

I stayed for four days with a group of fellow Americans so I had plenty of time to visit your beautiful historic treasures.  As an amateur photographer, I was excited on my first evening in Kilkenny as I left the lovely Langton’s Hotel to take some photographs. I was disappointed however as I set up my camera to take my first photo — a view of Kilkenny Castle from John’s Bridge.

The reason for my disappointment was that the second-storey windows on the riverside of the castle have been blocked up, absolutely spoiling the view of the castle in its full glory.

On visiting the castle later that day, I asked a staff member the reason for the blocked windows, and he explained to me that it was necessary when the Long Gallery in the castle was being renovated many years ago in order to give more wall space for hanging paintings.

I can accept the reasoning behind this measure, but why oh why could faux/false windows with  blackened glass not be installed to camouflage from the outside? This could be done into the existing blocked up frames with very little inconvenience. I have seen this done many times both in America and on my travels when I visited historical buildings, with great effect.

The reason I decided to write to you was in the hope that if you should decide to print my letter in your newspaper, some local person or interested group might agree with me and approach the necessary people, such as a heritage society or some other such group for grant support or a local business might even agree to sponsor such an undertaking.

I do intend on revisiting Ireland in the future and when I do, Kilkenny will definitely be on my list again. Hopefully when I do, ‘fingers crossed’ I’ll get the perfect photo of Kilkenny Castle from John’s Bridge in all its glory.

Yours sincerely,

Patrick Delger,
Clearwater,
Florida,
USA
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