Permission granted for major new religious building in Kilkenny

Planning permission has been granted to Irish Friends of the Foyer of Charity to develop a large retreat centre (containing a church, an oratory, lecture facilities and more) on a site at Rathlogan and Glashare, Johnstown, County Kilkenny.

Also planned for the site are kitchen and dining facilities, a library, a sitting room and recreational space for retreatants, en-suite bedroom accommodation, a boiler house, a campanile (bell tower), an access road, car parking, a wastewater treatment system, a sand polishing filter and associated site works.

According to a letter submitted in the planning application from the applicant, “The Foyer of Charity is a community of laypersons (referred to as the Foyer family) working together under the leadership of a priest, the Father of the Foyer, at the service of those who come to the Foyer on retreat.” 

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The letter continues: “The first Foyer of Charity was founded in France in 1936, thanks to an inspiration nourished in prayer by a farmwoman, Marthe Robin, and the apostolic work of a diocesan priest, Father George Finet of Lyons. 

“Currently there are 76 Foyers worldwide, 28 in Africa, 15 in the Americas, 9 in Asia and 24 in Europe of which there are 11 in France and 1 in Ireland. They welcome about 50,000 retreatants each year worldwide. The Foyer of Charity has been present in Ireland since 1985. 

“The main function carried out in/by a Foyer of Charity is the provision of week-long silent retreats. These retreats are open to all people who might wish to attend. The current Foyer location in Co. Waterford, does not facilitate the provision of retreats due to size and space restrictions…

“The ideal obviously is to be in a fixed location and to be able to accommodate the retreats there. The Foyer Father and the Foyer family would reside permanently in the retreat centre from where they would welcome retreatants to stay for a retreat and/or visitor that might stop by. This is what has brought the Foyer of Charity to Rathlogan, where they are now in ownership of the 20 acre site. This location is quite central nationally due to road, bus and rail network [sic] that are nearby.”

The planning application was lodged in October 2023 and further information was sought by Kilkenny County Council from the applicant on various aspects of the plans in a letter dated in late November 2023.

Following a response from the applicant received by Kilkenny County Council in recent weeks, the local authority decided to grant planning permission (subject to 15 conditions) on September 27, 2024.

Some of the conditions include that: the applicant shall submit and agree a construction management and traffic plan with the planning authority prior to commencement of the development; the bell in the bell tower shall only ring Monday to Sunday at 12.00 and 18.00, with the ringing lasting no longer than one minute each time; the applicant shall put in place a traffic management plan for all special events which will give rise to increased visitors and traffic to the proposed development; and the developer shall engage a suitably qualified archaeologist to monitor (licensed under the National Monuments Acts) all site clearance works, topsoil stripping, groundworks and/or dredging and the implementation of any necessary preservation in-situ measures.

Similar plans to develop the site were lodged by the group back in 2018 and were granted conditional planning permission however that planning permission had lapsed.

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