It could have been thrown out without a second thought.

“This window originally was up in the rectory… and during a cleanout was rediscovered.”

Hazel Greene and Cyril Stanley decided to keep the window though it had no clear value. They didn’t know its full history, and they didn’t need to. They simply chose to keep it.

Instead of ending up discarded, the stained-glass window was taken, stored, and quietly cared for. For years, it stayed like that, safe, but largely unknown. An object without a story, waiting for one to be uncovered.

During Covid, as the parish marked the bicentenary of the church, attention shifted back to the past. The window resurfaced, and a restoration was commissioned. What had once been overlooked began to draw interest and not just for how it looked, but for what it might mean.

Because, as Murphy puts it, “it goes from an inanimate to animate… when you have a story behind it.”

At first, that story wasn’t clear as the records were uncertain and even conflicting. The subject of the window was debated. Looking at it, you could see a central figure, a monk-like presence, haloed, speaking to a group and a harp appears in one corner, a listener leans in, another seems unconvinced, hand to chin.

But who was it?

“It became a kind of ‘who do you think I am?’”

The answer revealed itself slowly over time. Not through the main figure, but through the smaller details: two family crests embedded in the glass. Once traced, they led to the Earls of Huntington, who had ties to the area and from there, the image became clearer.

The figure was Saint Patrick, preaching. A scene of conversion, tied not just to religion, but to identity and place.

But who made it?

Mary Lowndes was not what you can call ‘typical’. Working in the late nineteenth century, she was part of the Arts and Crafts movement, a period that valued craftsmanship, detail, and individuality in design. More than that, she stood out in a field dominated almost entirely by men.

She wasn’t just a stained-glass artist, her early work focused on graphic design, creating banners and imagery for the suffragette movement. Her work carried both artistic and political weight, blending creativity with purpose at a time when women were rarely given space in either.

“She very much broke the mould”

This window is the exact reflection of that. It isn’t a copy or a repeat of a known pattern; it’s an original design. In fact, it’s the only example of a Mary Lowndes stained-glass window in Ireland that exists as a one-off piece.

“This window… is unique.”

That realisation changed how it was seen. What had started as a forgotten object became something of national importance. However, one decision needed to be made.

Where should it go?

There was an understanding that placing it in a museum might preserve it, but it would also remove something essential.

“If you take it out of its locality… it’s out of its context.”

Instead, the community found a balance. The window was restored and framed, protected, and displayed in St Mary Church. Not locked away, but still part of the place it came from.

During a time of isolation, people connected through the project – using calls, messages, and shared research to piece together its history. Art became a way of bringing people back into conversation.

And at the centre of it all are Hazel and Cyril.

Without them, there is no rediscovery. No restoration. No story.

They didn’t set out to preserve something significant. They simply chose not to let it disappear.

And because of that, a forgotten window became something much more. Something with a past, a place, and a story that could finally be told.