KILDARE: Historic inscription removed during €6m library build to be restored

A historic inscription marking the rebuilding of Naas Town Hall over a century ago is to be restored.

Kildare County Council has acknowledged that as a result of the necessary accessibility works at the new library and cultural centre the inscription referring to builder John Eacret is no longer visible.

However, it is planned to represent the inscription in “a suitably visible location at a later date when the works on site are complete and a stone mason is procured.”

The €6m project creating the library and cultural centre is all but complete and has transformed the building.

Labour Party councillor Anne Breen asked KCC to reinstate or replace a section of the front facade which commemorates the reconstruction of the town hall by John Eacret some 120 years ago.

That reconstruction, said Cllr Breen, created the town hall frontage  from an old jail in an “appealing Lombardic style vista” and it read: “Reconstructed by John Eacret builder 1904”.

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The new steps to the library door concealed the inscription on the lower wall of the facade which was long familiar to passers-by.

Ironically Eacret’s work there included a library sponsored by the Carnegie foundation which was incorporated in the re-ordered building in that year. It also transformed the facade of the building from the grim prison-like appearance which it had presented since the late 1700s to the attractive facade which it retains in modern times.