The bells of the Abbey Church in St Francis’ Street will ring in Christmas and the New Year for the first time in more than 30 years this week following a massive restoration project on the church.
Work has been under way for the past two months on reroofing the historic city centre church and carrying out a number of improvement and restoration works, and Highfield Contractors have pulled out all the stops to have the church completed for the Christmas celebrations, while bell specialists Belltron have restored the bells and connected them to an electronic ringing system.
As well as a new roof the church has had a new heating system installed, in addition to the restoration of the bell tower and bells, which can now be heard chiming out the Angelus twice daily and calling the faithful to Mass.
The Abbey bells were a familiar sound to residents in Woodquay and Newtownsmith in years gone by, but they fell into disrepair in the 1970s and have remained silent since. Thursday will mark the first time since then that the bells will be heard in full celebratory flow for Christmas, and plans are in place to have the bells chime in the New Year next week.
Local businesses and residents have raised some €450,000 for the works, which have an estimated cost of €500,000.
“We are delighted that the bells are ringing again,” said parish priest Fr Padraig Breheny this week. “We are very grateful to the people of Galway who have been extremely generous, and it is because of their generosity that we have been able to do this work.”
