St. Mary's Parish Church, Cahir, Tipperary
Built: Willis 1866 - Restoration:
St Mary's Parish Church in Cahir, Co. Tipperary, is a substantial church, seating approximately 1200 people. It contained an organ of 11 stops; inherently unable to cope with such a large church. However, the organ contained good components. Given this, and the fact that the parishioners are very attached to their organ, it was decided to retain all original material.
It was originally built by Willis in 1866, with amendments by Hill in 1869 and Telford & Telford in 1889.
The alternative proposal (by other organ builders) was to restore this organ and enlarge it to the tune (no pun intended) of 2 stops. We however, approached this project a little differently as we are of the opinion that an organ needs to be at least 30 stops for a building this size. To enlarge it sufficiently using traditional pipes would have been ungainly and impractical. We therefore entered a joint venture with Phoenix Organ NI, integrating their technology for the additional stops.
The work to the Great soundboard of this organ is documented on this website with a series of photos - just go to 'photos'.: