An artwork of one of the three new stained glass windows for St. Conal’s Church, Portnoo. The windows were installed on Monday.
TO celebrate the 150th anniversary of St Conal’s Church, Portnoo, the parish and Fr Philip Daly C.C have commissioned three glorious stained glass windows.
The windows, designed and manufactured by Art Glass Stained Glass Studio of Derry city, were installed yesterday just in time for the church’s big anniversary this Sunday.
To bring their hopes for the stained glass to fruition the parish committee and Fr Daly were very heavily involved with the artists at Art Glass over the past year in the decision-making process to bring first the artwork and then the manufacture of the stained glass to completion.
This has involved numerous visits to Art Glass’s studio at Skeoge Business Park and Art Glass representatives attending meetings on site. Through this collaborative process the glorious stained glass windows have been created.
The windows are traditional hand-made with the craftsmen using the same skills and process as have been used by craftsmen down through the ages where colour and design are fixed in glass by heating and melting them into the glass.
In this instance the stained glass panels will be built into quadruple glazed units and fitted into steel reinforced P.V.C frames. This configuration of glass will meet the desired Health and Safety and Heat Emission regulations.
They are a modern interpretation of the resurrection being situated very prominently in the entrance to the church to give inspiration and be an uplifting reference point for the community. The windows will also be a very important embellishment, an enhancing element on the exterior elevation overlooking the cemetery.
Mr Philip Coyle, Art Glass Stained Glass Studio, said: “In the stained glass method there is a journey and struggle with light, materials and image to present an honest representation of something that is of great importance even intuitive creativity in art involves struggle and ideas which in practice will be contested so struggle and uplifting liberation is representational of the work, we believe the work has validation, has substance, something of the inspirational and the emergence into light from the reality of self, nature and historical and religious consciousness.”
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