former Convent Chapel, Naas, Co. Kildare

This is a delightful little organ by Bevington. It has suffered at the hands of what appears to be an amateur organbuilder and lost it mechanical action when a console was fitted on the ground floor and the action electrified. The convent lay derelict for many years and is now turned into apartments, keeping the chapel as a community space. We restored the organ to as close to its original condition as we could including recreating the mechanical action and en fenetre console. A cut-out in the gallery suggests there was a pedalboard at one time which would have been coupled to the manual keyboard with no independant pedal stop. There is no evidence of the compass of the pedalboard and looking at Bevington organs of the period there appears to be 13 note, 20 note and other versions. The maximum size available allowed for 22 notes so this compass CC-A was adopted.

The organ was dismantled in October 2009 as building work commenced and removed to Belfast where it was fully restored before being re-installed in Naas in May 2011. The pitch was just a few hertz sharp of standard so tuning slides were fitted to the metal pipes to preserve them from further cone tuning damage and also to have the organ available for use with other instruments.

Historic restoration and recreation of mechanical action