Stained glass artists get New Zealand commission

The commission went to ArtGlass at Skeoge Industrial Estate in the city, and co-director of the 20-strong company, Philip Coyle, who runs the company in partnership with his wife, Sinead, said he was “delighted” to have secured the commission.

“St Patrick’s has extensive parish connections and some of the clergy would be back and forward to Derry/Londonderry and in the South. I think it was at Rosscommon that they saw our work. We had done work over a number of years in Rosscommon in about six churches and ArtGlass would be well known there, and in Mayo and Tyrone.

“Since our formation in 1983 we have gradually built up the company and we focus on church restoration work and making new memorial type windows, and would be one of the best known stained glass restoration companies in Ireland,” he said proudly.

“Representatives from St Patrick’s visited us and had a look at what we are doing the summer before last because they were researching what we were doing and they also looked at what other companies were doing. They wanted to see what we had done, and we got a telephone call about a year later asking us to create the window.

“Our design is based around Saints and clergy who have travelled and we were surprised when they said they wanted Columbcille depicted and we are also including the Patron Saint of Oceania, Pierre Chanel, the French Missionary who as martyred on an island to the North East of New Zealand in 1841,” Mr Coyle said.

The lights are traditional and formal in their design.