Grant Boost Helps Restore Historic St. Kieran's Community Centre In Labasheeda

0:00Now at a time when we so often hear about historic buildings falling into dereliction, one Westclair community is proving what can be achieved with determination and local pride. St. Karen's community center in Labeshida originally built as a church almost 200 years ago. 1837 has been given a fresh boost thanks to a new grant supporting ongoing restoration work. And for more on this, I'm joined in studio by Liam Wolfe from Labeshida who braved the conditions out there and we really appreciate him doing that to join us this morning. Liam Good, see you again. Thanks for coming in. Glad to be here. Now this building, fantastic building, it was where I met yourself and other community members for the Labeshida episode of the Village Tour and repurposed as a community center and old Protestant church and a Catholic and a lovely church. Tell us a bit more about it and how it ended up becoming a community center. I suppose giving you a part of history, a quick history, the building, it was built in 1837, it's a cruise farm building as a lot of churches were at that time.

1:05So it served the community up until 1977 when the new church was built across the road. The building was decommissioned then as a church and it was sold to Shannon Development where there was a factory in it for a while making board games, yeah, unusual. And then it came back into the community's ownership again after that and like, you know, everything that happens in Labeshida, all hands on deck from people in the community, they came in and I suppose just to visualize it for people who don't know the building, the two side aisles of the cruise farm church is what became the community center. The Long Island section of the building, which is the one we're just going now, that was all blocked up for years, there was a doorway down there, all the original windows where Gothic style windows were all blocked up and it was used on occasion. I suppose mainly for the set dancing weekend where you would have the overspill in there and food and drink and things like that down there.

2:08So I suppose for many years we were looking and saying, what can we do with it or what should we do with it. So we made a couple of attempts at getting national grants and eventually in 2023, we received a substantial grant under the town and village renewal scheme and the grant is specifically for that to repurpose that Long Island area. So I suppose in between the jigs and the reels and contractors and tenders and all that sort of thing, eventually we got going back in around October. So it's the local contractor, LabCon, the O'Neill family who are very strong connections with the building. I'm probably good to have some locals doing it because they'll appreciate the building more than bringing it outside or so. You mentioned the windows, that's going to be part of the restoration work. Is there anything else involved in it or is it predominantly around the windows themselves? I suppose most of our thinking and discussions

3:12went around what we should do with the windows. So because of the nature of the building and the history attached to the building, we took a long time before we made a decision that we would put in original style wooden windows because that's what would have been in the building originally. Obviously that was a very expensive part of the work, but we decided that that really had to be done and we're just delighted that we have done that. So you have these Gothic style windows that have been returned to the building. Internally, then the ceiling was insulated and slabbed and you can still see the old king trusses as they called them. So we're kind of half ways to towards through the project. There's outside work to be done on the bell tower and then there are electrics and we have a little bar down there. So we're kind of half ways, three quarter ways

4:13through the work at the building. Okay, well you've a good lot of it done so and when you expect it to be finished and will that be the end of it, you know, you were showing me a sheet or are you looking for? Yeah. I can't the community or maybe maybe even people from Labeshida who have moved around the county, the country or across the Atlantic wherever they might be now. Can they help out in terms of continued restoration work with the church? Well, with the building like that, you're never finished. You're never, never, never, never done. So I suppose the focus at the moment is to get this section of the building done and to get it back into use and obviously there's, you know, this work is going to cost over 300,000. So you know, we're we're hoping to raise funds to do the rest of it. No, I'm just going back a step there. We have been very fortunate to get a substantial gift from Jim and Amy Keene and

5:15their family and they live in the United States of America. Jim's father was the late Henry Keene from Labeshida and Henry and his wife, Maureen, who was a very proud Kerry woman. They came back on holidays regularly and kept the interest and Jim has always kept, you know, in contact and kept had a great interest in what's happening locally. So just to say, you know, we're we're very grateful to Jim and Amy and their family who have given us substantial donation in memory of his parents, Henry and Maureen. Well, fair play to them. And if anyone else with Labeshida connections over in the States is listening, dollars very much welcome. We look forward to chatting to you when the work is done. It really is a fabulous building and it's great to see it repurposed as a community center. I'm sure it was great when it was making board games bizarrely, you know, but it's better as a community center. That is for sure. So just before we do, we do have a new website which gives all

6:16the details. So if you google Labeshida Hall, our St. Keene's community center, you will see all, you know, details of what what is going on and the fundraising efforts that we're now undertaking to, you know, just to complete the work and also to do some upgrading in the kind of the main community center building that we have been using since 1988. Well, the last time I was there, we had a lovely cup of tea and biscuits sitting outside in the sun. I look forward to maybe doing that inside the fully restored church next time I'm there. Slash community center. That's St. Keene's community center. Great to see the grandas helping and anyone else wants to help out. Liam has given the details. Liam, thank you very much for traveling. Safe journey home. Thank you, Labeshida. Totally more for us on morning focus.