St Oliver Plunketts, Blackrock

Client: Sheehan & Barry Architects.

Date: 2016

St Oliver Plunkett’s Roman Catholic Church is a Hiberno-Romanesque Revival church built 1923 to designs by Ralph Byrne.

As part of a major refurbishment overseen by Conservation Architects Sheehan & Barry, Opus Mosaic was commissioned to clean and repair the existing original mosaic detail which adorns the walls and flooring of the Sanctuary and the side chapels. Damage had been caused by the later insertion of strip lighting through the mosaic surface, and where re-ordering had been carried out in the C20, including the removal of altar rails.

Working in close co-operation with the Architects and Conservation Officer, cleaning was carefully undertaken by hand, and repairs were undertaken to restore the ragged edges to the Sanctuary perimeter, where the altar rails had been located and marble slabs inserted in their place.  The slabs, which were stained and uneven, were removed and new sections of mosaic banding were carefully crafted in our workshop to match the original.

The approach was to re-use as much of the original fabric as possible, carefully matched with new material as seamlessly as possible.

We also constructed a new section of flooring to insert in front of the altar, where the baptismal font had been removed