SMI Conference 2011: Round Table Session
'As Good as Old': Issues Surrounding the Preservation of Historic Organs in Ireland
Royal Irish Academy of Music, 9.00

Beyond Neo-Baroque: The New Organ of Holy Trinity Church, Crosshaven, Co. Cork
Mark Duley
Artistic Director, Pipeworks

The organ has been a tardy member of the early music revival, having only recently emerged from the reactionary precepts of the 'neo-baroque' aesthetic. In the last decades of the twentieth century a handful of organ builders began to look beyond the 'neo-baroque', back to the old instruments themselves in an attempt to understand why their sound seemed impossible to emulate in modern organs. This now well-established 'historical' movement is characterized by painstaking study, documentation, and preservation of existing old organs, and new instruments built according to the knowledge gleaned from such discovery.

It would be fair to say that this movement has had little impact in Ireland, until the recent completion of the new organ in Holy Trinity Church Crosshaven by Henk van Eeken. It bears the fruits of van Eeken's many years of experience as a leading figure internationally in the 'historical' movement. This paper will present the new Crosshaven organ as a signpost for a potential new direction in Irish organ building. It will highlight exciting recent discoveries about pipe-casting and construction, together with the builder's exacting approach to the selection of materials and their treatment, and the multi-disciplinary nature of the whole project, bringing together expertise the fields of conservation, architecture, liturgy, performance practice and technology. It will demonstrate this instrument as an important part of the wider European organ scene, and a major addition to Ireland's cultural life.

Towards a Scholarly Approach to the Preservation, Conservation and Restoration of Historic Organs in Ireland
Kate Manning
UCD Archives

Unlike many European countries, Ireland has no formal procedures for the restoration of historic organs. This has resulted in a very unsatisfactory approach to the long term preservation of important instruments, and given rise to the situation where benign neglect has sometimes proved more beneficial to an instrument's preservation than uninformed intervention. This paper will outline some of the issues involved in the identification, documentation and treatment of historic organs by looking at the treatment in Ireland of other aspects of what may be broadly understood as our material culture. It will examine established regulations and primary legislation in this area in other countries and look at some of Ireland's current primary legislation that may be applicable to the safeguarding of this portion of our cultural inheritance. It will propose the adoption of an archival appraisal process known as a documentation strategy as the starting point to developing a scholarly and informed approach to the preservation of this part of our heritage.

The Samuel Green organ of Trinity College/Durrow Parish Church-background and future
Dr Kerry Houston
DIT Conservatory of Music

There have been three Chapel buildings at Trinity College Dublin since its foundation in 1592. The third (and present) chapel was consecrated in 1798 and a new organ by Samuel Green was provided. This was a large three manual instrument and seems to have been completed by Green's foreman Benjamin Blyth under the direction of his widow Sarah Green (Samuel died in 1796). Interestingly, changing taste resulted in this fine instrument being abandoned in the late 1830s and removed to St Fintan's Church, Durrow, Co Laois where it remains in an almost unaltered state. Green's handsome case remained in Trinity and a new instrument was installed in this case by William Telford (although the choir organ from Green's instrument was retained). The provision of an organ in rural Ireland was unusual in the early nineteenth century but the acquisition of Green's instrument was not for a parish church, but rather for the estate chapel of Viscount Ashbrook of Castle Durrow. There are only two examples of Green's work extant in Ireland-Cashel cathedral and the Trinity College organ now in Durrow. The instrument in Cashel has been radically altered and the original case is now in Wicklow parish church so the Trinity/Durrow instrument is by far the most significant. This paper explores trends in organ building in early nineteenth-century Ireland and outlines recent restoration work on this important historic instrument.

This roundtable session will be followed by an open panel discussion with participation by Professors David Higgs and Jacques van Oortmerssen. Professors Higgs and Van Oortmerssen have extensive knowledge of the restoration of historic instruments and in the use of historic organ-building techniques.

Pipeworks Masterclasses

Details about the 2011 series of masterclasses are available here.

Heritage Projects

Pipeworks works very hard to promote all aspects of the organ and choral arts in Ireland. Our education programme has encompassed dedicated workshops for children with Guy Bovet and Carlo Curley as well as running organ and choral masterclasses. We also regard awareness of Ireland's organ heritage as a key element in the promotion of the organ in Ireland. To that end we began a programme of recording important Irish instruments as a way of adding to the existing historical documentation that survives and also to promote awareness and use of such instruments.

Our first endeavour in this project is a collaboration between Pipeworks, Ricercar and The Heritage Council. Joris Verdin, who was a jury member in the 2005 festival, recorded a programme of French organ music on the Father Willis organ of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dundalk on the Ricecar label.