Kilkishen restoration takes an international flavour

While the community of Kilkishen is actively pursuing the development and restoration of the disused Church of Ireland to a community cultural centre, one committee member is trying to achieve the same goal on an international scale.

 

New York native Sharon Carberry, who now lives in Atlanta, Georgia, heard about the restoration project on an online historical forum provided by the Clare County Library and decided to get involved.

“This was a complete surprise, as I had no idea that saving Ireland’s old buildings is often left to the communities, without regard for historical merit. In the US, projects on this scale are normally the responsibility of a large government department. When I further learned that the restored building would be the village’s first community centre and that the restoration committee has such progressive ideas on its being used to bring Kilkishen into the mainstream of contemporary life which I enjoy, I knew I had to ask what I can do. Committee PRO Michael McNamara was instantly responsive, and since then I have interacted with almost all the people on the project,” she told The Clare Champion.

Having ancestral connections with the Donnellan family in Kilkishen made her involvement even more special, as Sharon outlined.

“Sharing a common purpose has taken me to a whole new level of involvement with the place that my family once called home, for me just a name on a page until I joined the committee. My ancestors are in the cemetery there in Kilkishen,” she said.

“With the last Carberry departure from Kilkishen in 1864, my family lost its ties with Kilkishen. My ancestor was the first to leave, but happily I was the first to return, in 1998. I made a beeline to Kilkishen after arriving in Shannon at an early hour.  I found the cemetery and paid my respects. To this day, there is nothing more that can be done except leave for Ennis, because there is no welcome centre, a function that the restored church building will have,” she added.

Sharon was last in East Care in January this year, when she met with Nonie Donnellan in her Kilkishen shop to compare family history and to attend a meeting of the Kilkishen Church restoration committee.

Asked why she is passionate about this project she said the building itself invokes a passion in her.

“Once you have seen this building and realise its significance in the community, it is impossible to not do something. The old church still has visual impact with its gorgeous raftered ceiling and cut-stone walls. When restored, it will not only be valued by the residents for that reason but it will be the very heart of activities central to Irish life now and into the future. Kilkishen has been a farming location, where plain, sturdy buildings are the norm.

“The Cultural Centre is needed to be a different place, more stylish, to be a popular meeting place for activities and classes to support a variety of livelihoods and recreation. As an American with an affinity for the outdoors, I know that tourism will also take a turn upwards when there are opportunities for guided nature/history walks and the like. The fact that a group of residents has that vision is astonishing to me, and I must help.  I am inspired by their commitment and resourcefulness,” she said.

Sharon is a lawyer but she revealed her original career goal was to be a historian, likely influenced by the upstate New York community of Rhinebeck where she was raised, with its many historical buildings.

In embarking on this particular venture as a Diaspora member of the Kilkishen Church restoration committee, Sharon has had to find her own way of reaching out to the public abroad.

“I think I am inventing that process, as I am in the course of discovering what kind of appeal is most effective. My initial hope was that a simple email announcing the project’s need for donations would be productive when sent to Kilkishen descendants residing worldwide.The recipients are in the US, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.  There are other committee members involved with first-generation descendants of Kilkishen residents and my group involves only descendants of those who emigrated before 1930, usually decades earlier than that year,” she said.

Sharon added that, consistent with the Gathering campaign, she has been doing genealogical research to help the committee provide descendants with places in Kilkishen that they can visit and one Australian couple did so in September. 

Sharon hopes that the historic preservation aspect of the restoration has broad appeal and has made contact with over 300 members of an Irish-American business network.  Most recently, the building’s proposed re-dedication as a centre for heritage purposes gained attention with a featured article in the October edition of the online publication The Irish Heritage Magazine. 

She keeps a constant dialogue with committee activities via email and attended her first meeting in person last January, when she visited Kilkishen.

“Attending the January meeting was a really big event for me and that was made possible by the committee’s making arrangements for my sake,” Sharon said.

She is now looking forward to returning again once the building is officially opened, which she described as one which will be “such a happy day”.

“I think this project can serve as an example for other communities in Ireland and a wave of similar historic preservation would be a welcome consequence of the success of our project,” she concluded.