The Ups and Downs of Lifford Old Courthouse
"Watch an old building with an anxious care, guard it as best you may, and at any cost from every influence of dilapidation. Count its stones as you would jewels of a crown; set watches about it as if at the gates of a besieged city; bind it together with iron where it loosens, stay it with timber where it declines; and do this tenderly, reverently and continually and many a generation will still be born and pass away beneath its shadows"
John Ruskin
For fifty years, Ruskin's words went unheeded as far as Lifford Courthouse was concerned. Although it was "one of the finest of the Ulster Sessions Houses built in the eighteenth century", after its last court case was heard in 1938 the building was allowed to fall into complete disrepair. In his book 'Ulster Courthouses and Market Houses', C.E. Brett of the National Trust wrote in 1973:
"It is one of the finest buildings in the North and the most neglected. The interior of the Criminal Court has been gutted, even the ceiling has been removed, and the leaking slates propped up by two long telegraph poles, while the pigeons befoul the polling boxes stored there".
10 years later, things hadn't improved much when Frank McDonald of the Irish Times reported:
"The roof leaks badly, the interior walls are blotched by dampness, parts of the plaster cornice have fallen down and the large courtroom is just a shambles".
Thanks to the determination of some local people, who formed a committee dedicated to the regeneration of the area, this process was eventually reversed in the late 1980's. After further renovation, the Old Courthouse finally re-emerged in 1994 as an award-winning Heritage Centre attracting thousands of visitors each year.
However, it is not as if the building lay completely empty and unused for half a century. Far from it. Up until 1984, for instance, part of it was used as the central headquarters of Donegal County Libraries. After they moved, it reverted to Lifford Community Library which returned to the Courthouse recently after a spell on the Main Street. Other parts of the building were utilised by the County Council Land Registry, the Agricultural Committee and Donegal Archives Department while the dark, musty cells in the basement were used as a storage area by the roads department. Even the local children put it to their own use, with scallywags such the Sheils, the McIntyres and the Herrons treating it as their private playground.
But it was storage of another commodity that almost led to the complete destruction of this once impressive monument to the past. During the 'Emergency' period of the Second World War, when coal was scarce, the building was converted into a Turf Depot which was then transported by rail to other 'non-turf' producing areas such as Dublin. This situation continued for several years after the war until one night in May 1948 the turf in the Courthouse caught fire. Fortunately, the Strabane Fire Brigade managed to get to Lifford in time otherwise there would be no Courthouse today.
All in all, it has been quite a chequered career for the old building, but at least today its future is safe for a little while longer, especially if we keep John Ruskin's words in mind.
Extract from "The Court Will Rise - A short history of the Old Courthouse, Lifford, Co. Donegal" by Billy Patton.