reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches

[gunter]

There's nothing worse than finding out that a truth you hold dear is also held dear by a torch wielding intellectual supremacist.

I love his dismissal of the interweb:

“Data, data everywhere, but no one knows a thing.”

[Praxiteles]

From the New Liturgical Movement

The Collected Letters of A. W. N. Pugin, Volume 4




The Collected Letters of A. W. N. Pugin, volume 4 1849 to 1850

Edited with Notes and an Introduction by Margaret Belcher

Oxford University Press, £142.50

‘I am so sick of passing my life doing miserable buildings & getting abused for them afterwards,’ wrote A. W. N. Pugin dejectedly to John Hardman in 1849, ‘that I want to employ the few years of life left to make at any rate good designs, it is horrible to be taunted on all sides for buildings in which everything is cut down to the Last shilling – give me an employer with money & I will work for him – but no more poor jobs.’

This quotation is taken from the first letter in the fourth volume of Pugin’s Collected Letters for the years 1849-50. For the last ten years admirers of Pugin’s work have enjoyed the monumental endeavour of the publication of his correspondence, impeccably edited by Muriel Belcher. This constitutes one of the major achievements in the literature of the Gothic Revival. The present volume is not only the longest of the series so far published but also the most detailed in the range of Pugin’s work and preoccupations. In comparison with the success of his earlier years it records a professionally bleak period marked by the ebbing away of significant architectural commissions and their replacement by designs for stained glass, church furniture and metalwork, precious and base. The furnishing and decoration of the New Palace of Westminster dragged on. ‘To be architect to one grate or one fireplace’ was, so he assured Hardman, worse ‘than keeping a fish stall – for one may get a few shillings by a deal in whiting.’

No critic could be more savage in their estimation of his work than Pugin himself but he resented criticism because few knew the constraints under which he was sometimes forced to work. Accusations of thinness of structure, weak elevations, and poor materials were made regardless of circumstances. Even the consecration of St Augustine’s, Ramsgate, on 14 August 1850, disappointed him. ‘The church was blest this morning,’ he informed Hardman, ‘& mass sung, the altar Looked wretched, we had nothing, the weather dreadful, a heavy gale from the N. blowing everything into the church the moment a door was opened. … I have been a great fool ever to begin such a Large work without better materials to work it, the chairs &c Look beastly - & building has lost immensely inside by the benches …’. St Augustine’s crippled Pugin for the rest of his life; in the meanwhile, Mrs Pugin had to endure a course of cod liver oil which did little for domestic contentment. Yet here his beliefs, as an architect and Catholic, converged. In 1850 he had mellowed and wrote to John Rouse Bloxam, inviting him to Ramsgate, saying that ‘The interior of the church is most solemn & would delight you much’.

These were the years of reversals of Pugin’s principles not only by wary bishops but by zealous converts seeking authenticity in Baroque Catholicism. Of these the main culprits were the Oratorians who were disliked and feared by Pugin. ‘I never looked on a Puritan with half the disgust that I do on Oratorians, they are the worst enemies of religion that England has seen for many a day … we have never had such miserable prospects never so low in hopes.’ While in return Newman deplored Pugin’s ‘haughty and domineering tone’. It is, perhaps, ironical that the brass furniture on Newman’s coffin was designed by Pugin years before and made as a standard design by Hardman. Moreover, in 1849 Newman had bought Gothic church metalwork from his firm.

Pugin’s stained glass was used by many architects, including Carpenter, Butterfield, and Woodyer, among others, but the return was ‘nothing’; ‘the windows neither pay me nor you’, he observed to Hardman. Nevertheless, he was able to buy his boat, the Caroline, which gave him endless pleasure and he illustrated another of the letters to Hardman with the yacht in full sail. Today Pugin’s glass is regarded as one of his greatest achievements.

The survival of the Hardman archive has enabled the greater part of Pugin’s surviving letters to be preserved. But there is other correspondence, including personal letters to Jane, his wife, Crace, his decorator, architects, his clients and sundry correspondents, including bellicose letters to the press. He welcomed the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in 1850. In 1849 he published Floriated Ornament, the most beautiful of his books, and towards the end of 1850 collected material for his treatise on Screens.

All of this activity was accomplished against the background of domestic security and comfort, the birth of his youngest child, Margaret, and the marriage of his eldest daughter, Anne, to J. H. Powell which further cemented the link between Pugin and Hardman. Pugin’s artistic touchiness found full expression in his letters, many written in a towering rage, and they are invaluable not merely for shedding light on his work but also his life and times. In the copious footnotes, which are marvels of scholarship, we further discover Pugin as he really was, rather than as the subject of prejudiced assumptions.

-- Anthony Symondson SJ

[Praxiteles]

English Medieval Floor Tiles

What can be said with a lot more certainty, though, is that they have found the remains of the Grey Friars’ church and friary, one of the most important ecclesiastical institutions in late medieval Leicester. (And, in my opinion, that’s the more important part of the findings anyway.) What has been dug up includes parts of the walls of both the church and the chapter house, fragments of window tracery and some inlaid floor tiles, presumably dating from the 14th century:


Now I must admit that I couldn’t care less about the bones of some long dead monarch – even if he has been immortalized in Blackadder by Shakespeare – but I’m utterly fascinated by medieval floor tiles! The thing about floor tiles is that they are generally simply overlooked by art historians, partly because they are usually not high art (most of them being a bit crude in execution and, what’s perhaps worse, mass-produced), partly because not all that many of them survive. Those that do survive are mostly isolated pieces kept (but not always displayed) in museums, but in the later Middle Ages tiled pavements adorned practically every church and every cloister, every chapter house and every refectory, and, in secular settings, every hall and every chamber. Most of the tiles were, of course, purely ornamental, but quite often they would also include figurative scenes such as the famous Tristan Tiles from Chertsey Abbey, now in the British Museum.


Only very few tiled pavements from the Middle Ages survive in their entirety, but I had the good fortune to get to see one of them only last week when I was travelling in the south-west of England. This particular pavement is preserved at Cleeve Abbey (Somerset), a Cistercian monastery founded in the 12th century:

Like Greyfriars’ Church in Leicester, the church of Cleeve Abbey was demolished in the wake of the English Reformation, but most of the other abbey buildings, including the dormitory and the chapter house, are still extant. While most of them date to the 13th century, the refectory range was rebuilt in the late 15th century. However, just to the south of it, the pavement of the original 13th century refectory was discovered and excavated in 1876. As you might be able to discern in the above photo, a sort of tent has now been installed to protect the pavement from wind and rain, but this is relatively recent and before that the pavement had been exposed to the elements for several decades, causing considerable deterioration…

It is still pretty well-preserved, though, and most importantly it still retains the original tile arrangement, something that is extremely rare in surviving medieval pavements. Presumably made in the 1270s by a Gloucestershire tilery, the refectory floor at Cleeve Abbey consists mainly of heraldic tiles, visualizing the abbey’s political affiliations and commemorating its most important lay patrons. There are the arms of the earls of Gloucester from the de Clare family…


… the arms of the earls of Cornwall…

[

… and, more particularly, of Richard of Cornwall (1209-1272), the double-headed eagle in his crest alluding to his heavily contested stint as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire…



… and then, of course, there are the three well-known English lions, presumably commemorating extensive donations made to the abbey by king Henry III:


But there are even more 13th century tiles to be seen at Cleeve Abbey: Another batch of them survives in the south-western corner of what was once the abbey church. These too include some heraldic tiles, but for the most part they are merely ornamental. And, as is evident in the photo below, on the whole this particular patch doesn’t look as if it preserves the original arrangement…


Finally, a few more tiles from the church are on display in the small abbey museum, run by English Heritage. Most prominently among them is this pair of tiles which, according to the label in the museum, dates “from sometime between 1244 and 1272″ and was designed to be laid “on the risers of steps, perhaps in the presbitery of the church”:

So far, so good, but the label then goes on to say that “the design shows a legendary combat between Saladin (right) and King Richard I (left) during the Third Crusade” – and I can’t help but wonder: How do they know that? Of course, we know from written sources that the legendary combat of Richard and Saladin was a popular subject in 13th century England, especially in the decoration of royal palaces. And it also appears in the aforementioned Chertsey Tiles:

However, in the tiles from Chertsey, the Christian warrior to the left is clearly wearing a crown and sporting England’s Three Lions on his shield (see detail here). Also, at Chertsey, fragments of tiles spelling out the name RICARDUS have been found, so all in all there is a solid case for identifying the combatants as Richard and Saladin (or at least for identifying one of them as Richard and deducing that his opponent has to be Saladin). Unfortunately, no such thing may be said for the pair of tiles at Cleeve: Here, there is no inscription, and while the horseman to the right may be identified as a Saracen (if only by his round shield), his Christian adversary’s shield only shows the crusaders’ cross but not the arms of England. Nothing here suggests that this figure was intended to represent King Richard, and it might be wiser therefore to simply label the scene as something generic like Combat between a Christian Knight and a Saracen.

But regardless of its precise iconography, this fragmented combat scene is a dire reminder that – no matter how amazing the surviving refectory pavement may be – a similarly or perhaps even more amazing pavement must once have adorned the floors of the abbey church…



http://historienerrant.wordpress.com/20 ... elsewhere/

[Praxiteles]

The Barton Turf Roods Screen

http://youtu.be/5I5BTxDKZKU

[Praxiteles]

St John's Church Ballybunion, Co. Kerry.


An Bord Pleannala has given a decison in relation to St John's Church, Ballybunion, Co. Kerry, which permits some conservation and maintenance elements of a development plan submitted by the diocese of Kerry but prohibits others which proposed a radical reordering of the sanctuary. Fortunately, the proposls to demolish the altar rails and gates were prohibited because such constituted an undue incursion on the integrity of a protected structure - as in the case of similar proposals at Cobh Cathedral .

The relevant documentation may be found here.


http://www.pleanala.ie/casenum/240123.htm


Here are the details of the application as submitted to Kerry Co. Council

http://mapping.kerrycoco.ie/planningenq ... rames.aspx

[Praxiteles]

Catholic Church Architecture in Britain from 1955


http://gsachurchproject.wordpress.com/about/

[Praxiteles]

An indespensible book



Pews, Benches & Chairs. Church seating in English parish churches from the fourteenth century to the present.

COOPER T & BROWN S (eds)

[Praxiteles]

Monument to Dom Columba Marmion, Sant'Agata dei Goti, Rome

On October 25, 2012, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke solemnly blessed the Monument of Blessed Columba Marmion, O.S.B., in the Church of Saint Agatha of the Goths in Rome. Columba Marmion was ordained to the priesthood in the Church of Saint Agatha of the Goths in 1881 when it was the site of the Irish College. Blessed Columba joined the Benedictine order in 1886 and served as the Abbot of Maredsous Abbey in Belgium through the First World War. He inspired both religious and lay faithful with his spiritual writings, including Christ, the Life of the Soul and Christ in His Mysteries. Columba was beatified by Blessed Pope John Paul II in the year 2000.

Cardinal Burke, who is the Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, commissioned the monument placque for his titular church. The monument was designed by Duncan G. Stroik with a Giallo di Siena and Carrara marble frame, a carved latin inscription and a bust of Blessed Columba Marmion, sculpted in Statuario marble by Giuseppe Ducrot. Ducrot has been praised for his sixteen-foot sculpture of Saint Annibale Maria di Francia for a niche in the façade of the Basilica of Saint Peter, blessed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 in Vatican City. The marble for the monument placque was provided by Roberto Pagliari Stone Consulting Sas.

[Paul Clerkin]

Recently re-opened after renos - St. Joseph's, Park St., Monaghan by William Hague

The original was badly hacked in the early 1980s losing most of the sanctuary fittings and a truly horrible carpet installed....

Now changed - new marble flooring to sanctuary, original tiling restored and expanded in body of church, and the fine roof cleaned. Confessionals have been removed - those on the left now contain statues and candles; those on the right gutted to form entrance to "Reconciliation Room'. Restoration - sanding etc of all the pews.

I have no item what the font in the middle of the church is for, as they've been doing the baptisms in the cathedral for a couple of decades now. For a time, they used to do them here - late 70-late 80s.

[Praxiteles]

Just how retro-70s can you be?

Looking at it, Dromaroad comes to mind. Any connection?

The whole thing is just kitsch junk with overtones of McCormack's make over of St. Mary's Oratory, Maynooth and in Armagh Cathedral - i.e. the brutal phase redivivus.
As for the wall to wall faux Victorian tile floor - well, this was never done in the past for very practical reasons. The isles were tiled but the area under the benches was always floored in timber. I wonder has the genius who installed ever had to stand for an hour on wet tiles in the winter? How would his feet feel after that? And you can forget the idea of underfloor heating because it is fast becoming too expensive - have you noticed the increasing smell of dank in churches which ahve not been properly heated for the past few years?

[Praxiteles]

http://www.armatilearchitectural.com/Projects/ProjectSpecific/28/CHU/st-colmcilles-church-belfast.aspx#

See what I mean? the place just pullulates with brimming imagination: this one has fishy looking fish on the swim but not at all like what you find in the Byzantine baptistery floors of places like Mount Nebo and certainly not at all like anything swimming around in the Jordan - to which they are supposed to refer.

Crash course theology and industrial liturgical studies !!

[Praxiteles]

Here we are. Came across them by sheer chance. these are the one's responsible for St. Joseph's in Monaghan:

http://www.armatilearchitectural.com/Pr ... x?type=CHU

The architects are: Kieran McCambridge / Aaron mcGrath of McLean and Forte

I wish these people would stop attribuiting the wreckage of churches to Vatican II. The Second Vatican Council did not mandate anything like the wreckage that went on here in the 1970s. The blame for that must be laid at the feet of ignorant clerics and greedy cynical architects.

[Praxiteles]

Longford Cathedral

http://www.longfordleader.ie/news/local/video-interview-bishop-colm-o-reilly-1-4519668

[Praxiteles]

The Evolution of York Minster

http://www.ecclsoc.org/ET40.pdf

(scroll to page 53)

[Praxiteles]

Below is a link to an abstract of a thesis on the subjject of liturgical reordering submitted last January for a PhD at Sydney university:

"
[url]unsworks.unsw.edu.au/fapi/.../SOURCE01[/url]

The following is note worthy:

"...these orderings gained prominence following Vatican Council II. 1962-1965, which enjoined that churches be built for the sacred murgy and the active participation of the faithful. The Implementation of this imperative brought about
widespread lnnovallon In church design, most significantly through new and adapted liturgical orderings. mari<lng a major shift
after centuries or standardised ordering In churches."


Praxiteles would like to know where exactly Vatican II "enjoined" anything about reordering and would be even more interested to hear about the sources for the "implementation of this imperative".

Praxiteles would have failed this candidate for producing a work on a baseless assumption.

[Praxiteles]

Baldassare Longhena and Venetian Baroque Architecture
Andrew Hopkins

http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/images/full13/9780300181098.jpg

This fascinating book offers the first comprehensive study in English of Baldassare Longhena (1598–1682), the indispensable architect of the Venetian Baroque. While Longhena's legacy is most visible in his iconic Madonna della Salute, the 17th-century basilica devoted to the Virgin Mary in gratitude for Venice's deliverance from the plague, and in the Pesaro and Rezzonico palaces along the Grand Canal, he created a plethora of other works over the course of a career that spanned half a century.

Andrew Hopkins's lucid and thought-provoking text considers the full span of Longhena's illustrious career, from his monumental staircases and libraries to the palaces commissioned by private patrons and his projects for Venice's Greek and Jewish communities. This lively account is accompanied by more than sixty color and 300 black-and-white photographs commissioned especially for the book. A complete list of Longhena's work is included in an appendix.

Andrew Hopkins is associate professor at the Università degli studi de L'Aquila.

[Praxiteles]

South Ulster: Armagh, Cavan, and Monaghan
The Buildings of Ireland

Kevin Mulligan


http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/images/full13/9780300186017.jpg


The South Ulster volume of the Buildings of Ireland covers the inland counties of Cavan, Monaghan and Armagh, an area stretching from the thinly populated uplands around the Cuilcagh Mountains and the cradle of the Shannon to the fertile Blackwater Valley and the southern shores of Lough Neagh. The architecture of the region is as varied as the landscapes that receive it, with building materials adding to the variety while ensuring that the buildings – whether vernacular in spirit or more formally designed – express a deep sense of belonging.

Kevin Mulligan is an architectural historian.

[Praxiteles]

The Architecture of the Scottish Medieval Church, 1100-1560
Richard Fawcett

http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/images/full13/9780300170498.jpg

The first in-depth survey of Scotland's medieval church architecture covers buildings constructed between the early 12th century and the Reformation in 1560. From majestic cathedrals and abbeys to modest parish churches and chapels, Richard Fawcett places the architecture in context by considering the varied sources of ideas that underlay church designs. Over the centuries, Scottish patrons and their masons moved away from a close relationship with England to create a unique late medieval architectural synthesis that took ideas from a wide range of sources. The book concludes with an account of the impact of the Reformation on church construction and design.

Richard Fawcett is a professor in the School of Art History at the University of St. Andrews and a principal inspector with Historic Scotland. He is a noted authority on medieval Scottish architecture and the author of Scottish Architecture from the Accession of the Stewarts to the Reformation and other works.

[Praxiteles]

On the Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament

from the Journal of Sacred Architecture:

http://www.sacredarchitecture.org/artic ... _firmiter/

[Praxiteles]

Authentic Beauty in Sacred Art

from the Journal of Sacred Architecture

http://www.sacredarchitecture.org/artic ... of_praise/

[Praxiteles]

Continuity and Change in Late Antiquity


from the Journal of Sacred Architecture


http://www.sacredarchitecture.org/revie ... antiquity/

[Praxiteles]

On Francesco Borromini

from the Journal of Sacred Architecture


http://www.sacredarchitecture.org/revie ... antiquity/

[Praxiteles]

What makes architecture sacred?


Fr. Uwe Michael Lang

http://www.sacredarchitecture.org/featu ... otre_dame/

[Praxiteles]

St. Colman's Cathedral Cobh, Co. Cork

It's that time of year again when we bring you the latest news from the Companies Registration Office on the St. Colman's Roman Catholic Trust Ltd. which is responsible for the "restoration" of St Colman's Cathedral in Cobh.

Main Points

The membership of the Trust has now shrunk to three. All of the controversial persons who used to belong to it had taken their leave and have left the baby in the arms of Brian Carroll (Fermoy), Denis Murphy (Mallow) and Frank Walley (Cobh). The present Report, submitted at the end of September 2012, covers the year ending 31 December 2011. In that period, not much happened. The only details given are as follows:

- Consolidation of high level Bath stoneon the western section of the internal south nave to prevent further deterioration and falling debris. Grouting was also carried out internally at this high level as a coordinated operation.

- the conservation of the marble and replacements of missing components of the Baptistery.

- the refurbishment of the entrance gate.

- the conservation of the internal south gable of the sacrsity which involved patch-pointing with lime mortar - where mortar had deteriorated and joints were open.

- Refurbishment of sacristy and corridor.

- installation of new light fittings at the main entrance.

- the conduct of lighting trials for a future internal lighting system.


The expenditure made on this work amounted to Euro 318, 294

The income for the same period amounted to Euro 87,166

The income consisted of Euro 17,166 in interest accruing to deposits with the bank
and of a grant from the Heritage Council of Euro 70,000.

That left the St. Colman's Trust with a healthy defecit of Euro 231,128

The current assets of the Trust as of 31 December 2011 amounted to Euro 528, 799

Not surprisingly, there were no gifts, contributions or legacies to the Trust for the period under revision - although mite boxes have been placed in the Cathedral soliciting contributions for its "restoration". Presumably, no one gave anything.

The fund also paid out Euro 27,537 in unspecified professional fees.

At this rate, the fund is likely to be exhausted in about two years when we can close it down and heave a sigh of relief.

[Paul Clerkin]

You'll love this floor design
http://www.victoriansociety.org.uk/news ... -mistaken/