Architecture of the South-East- Waterford, Wexford, Clonmel

[ake]

Both Waterford and Wexford can boast some great buildings. What does everybody think? What do you think of Waterford's two cathedrals? Christchurch is like nothing I've seen in Ireland. Really very beautiful and what an interior. The Catholic cathedral (by the same architect!) is also great- the facade is wonderful although the interior is somewhat....confused.The Courthouse in Waterford is also beautiful though very severe. I think Waterford has the prettiest quays of any city at the moment- notwithstanding that there are actually hardly any really notable buildings- but the ingenious corporation must have made a push for all the buildings to be freshly painted- (why didn't I think of that?) The pink-stoned churches of Wexford are awesome in size at least. There is also an exquisite franciscan-church with some remarkable stained glass and a very strange wonderful anglican or coi building around the center. No pictures of anything

Does anyone know anything about the Mental Hospital in enniscorthy? What a spectacle! What is the history of this building? I can't find any information on it.

[dave123]

I must say Waterford is probably one the most untouched city in Ireland when it comes to historic buildings and arcitecture; Most of the city centre has unchanged little since medieval times. Most of the city walls are still intact whereas Limerick and Dublin’s old city walls are mostly bulldozed for new development, sadly. I would say that Waterford would be top on my list for visitors to stay when coming from abroad.

I agree with you on the Cathedrals and the Quays, they are beautiful sights!
I'm hearing that Waterford is a boomtown place at the moment just like Galway was in the 1970s and 80s
Waterford has now erupted from its Dormant stage!

Is it true that there is a high rise being proposed for the North quays, (near the railway station)though I think the north side of the River Suir is a mess, development is uneven and undistributed, It reminds me of Castletroy in Limerick on a smaller scale and simular comparison where the County councils are encouraging the cities to expand but yet the keep the existing boundary unchanged, The sprawl is spilling out in Kilkenny of course, but its really a natural extension of the Waterford city and of course Like Limerick County council ain’t going to give it to back to the city. Does anyone agree with me??

[ake]

The Georgian COI Christchurch Cathedral in Waterford City designed by John Roberts (1712-1796). They say it is the only Georgian COI Cathedral in the classical style. The visitor's leaflet also claims it's the most beautiful cathedral on the island! And yet I don't know if I disagree..

This is the spire, you might have deduced. There is also a sublime little portico at the entrance front, done in the same gorgeous limestone. Look at it shine, silver-like. The interior shot does no justice. The plaster work is as fine as, say, that in Powerscourt townhouse, in Dublin.

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A bad one;

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[ake]

The City Hall in Waterford, also by Roberts, built 1783.

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This is from the irish arch site

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[ake]

The Medieval walls of Wexford town; though not much has survived, what has is very beautiful. The stone used is one of the most attractive used in rubble-stone work in Medieval Ireland and is much like that used in Clonmel,(in it's walls and Old St.Mary's church).

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[Praxiteles]

Does anyone know anything about the Mental Hospital in enniscorthy? What a spectacle! What is the history of this building? I can't find any information on it.

According to jeremy WIlliams' Companion to Architecture in Ireland p. 379, the architects are Farrell and Bell with an extension added in c. 1899 C.A. Owen.

There was the tradition that it was supposed to have been designed for a governmental purpose in the Raj but I have no evidence to support that.

[ake]

By the way in the above interior shot you can see the end of the nave is set up as a reception area with all sorts of ugly commercial clutter. This has happened in all the major Irish Anglican churches I've been in, and the 'shop fittings' which is exactly what they are, are often extremely permanent and always crude and imposing. It is not balked at to have gift shops with tourist keyring stalls and scarf-racks down the nave from the altar! The amusing point is, our Catholic churches are being destroyed at their east end by over-zealous priests with too much money to spend, and our Anglican churches are being vandalised at the west end in an attempt to acquire funds usually simply to survive intact!

[Praxiteles]

By the way in the above interior shot you can see the end of the nave is set up as a reception area with all sorts of ugly commercial clutter. This has happened in all the major Irish Anglican churches I've been in, and the 'shop fittings' which is exactly what they are, are often extremely permanent and always crude and imposing. It is not balked at to have gift shops with tourist keyring stalls and scarf-racks down the nave from the altar! The amusing point is, our Catholic churches are being destroyed at their east end by over-zealous priests with too much money to spend, and our Anglican churches are being vandalised at the west end in an attempt to acquire funds usually simply to survive intact!

Not quite so simple. The west ends of Catholic churches are currently in grave danger because of the latest crap out of places like Chuicago and Collegeville: it is called the gathering area and basically consists of clearing EVERYTHING at the west end to create a sort of glass hall in which people meet and chat and do other activities before and after "church". The worst example of such -and an advance warning example - is the parish church in DIngle, Co. Kerry, which had its gables lowered by 20 feet to make it look like an american bungalow "church". In case you had not noticed, a similar plan was in train for St. Colman's Cathedral but for once Cobh Urban District Council baulked.

[ake]

COI cathedral in Cashel, completed 1784

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Don't you just want to kiss that sexy limestone

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[ake]

Jerpoint Abbey, an Irish not Norman foundation originally, patronised by the King of Ossory himself. It's medieval ruins are just outside Thomastown, co.Kilkenny

Cistercian austere sublimity

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[ake]

Not quite so simple. The west ends of Catholic churches are currently in grave danger because of the latest crap out of places like Chuicago and Collegeville: it is called the gathering area and basically consists of clearing EVERYTHING at the west end to create a sort of glass hall in which people meet and chat and do other activities before and after "church". The worst example of such -and an advance warning example - is the parish church in DIngle, Co. Kerry, which had its gables lowered by 20 feet to make it look like an american bungalow "church". In case you had not noticed, a similar plan was in train for St. Colman's Cathedral but for once Cobh Urban District Council baulked.

It really makes you appreciate works of art all the more doesn't it when they're threatened with destruction from every angle

[Praxiteles]

Re the Cistercians this link may prove useful:

http://images.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=http://www.paradoxplace.com/Perspectives/Rome%2520%26%2520Central%2520Italy/Fossanova/Images/Cloister-Jun04-D3573sAR.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.paradoxplace.com/Perspectives/Rome%2520%26%2520Central%2520Italy/Fossanova/Fosssanova.htm&h=299&w=450&sz=28&hl=ga&start=3&tbnid=-D6L-ioVvHXmpM:&tbnh=84&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfossanova%2Bitaly%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Dga%26lr%3D

[ake]

Christchurch Waterford

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[Praxiteles]

COI cathedral in Cashel, completed 1784

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Don't you just want to kiss that sexy limestone

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A case of lithophelia?

[GrahamH]

Wonderful pictures ake - thanks. Isn't Christchurch Waterford simply sublime, interior and exterior.
More of this please!

[ake]

Some interior shots of the RC cathedral in Waterford, Just restored/refurbished.You can still smell the paint. It's not actually as dark as this, it's a new camera.

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The choir stalls,as well as I could photograph them with bad light and no tripod:(
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[ake]

Christchurch Waterford, currently being conserved. Some twat broke down the barrier and did this

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[ake]

Here's a question for anybody in the know. In the RC Cathedral in Waterford is this painting, beside this sign
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It is on the wall on the north aisle, in a badly lit position, with apparently no protection whatsoever. Is this actually an autograph Murillo?! I'm not very knowledgeable about paintings, but I find it hard to believe such a valuable piece would be hung here, in such a way. Maybe if it was in the high altar. Or is it by a namesake of of the great Spanish painter? I'm quite sure it's not a print. It was behind a glassed frame, and looked like canvas as far I can tell. It's certainly brilliant anyway.

[ake]

.

[ake]

Wexford town:
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[Praxiteles]

Here's a question for anybody in the know. In the RC Cathedral in Waterford is this painting, beside this sign
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It is on the wall on the north aisle, in a badly lit position, with apparently no protection whatsoever. Is this actually an autograph Murillo?! I'm not very knowledgeable about paintings, but I find it hard to believe such a valuable piece would be hung here, in such a way. Maybe if it was in the high altar. Or is it by a namesake of of the great Spanish painter? I'm quite sure it's not a print. It was behind a glassed frame, and looked like canvas as far I can tell. It's certainly brilliant anyway.

I am inclined to doubt that B.E. Murillo is the painter of this picture. I have looked at a catalogue of his works and find no reference to it. Also, the heart suggests a connection with devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus which really only got underway as a popular exercise from the early 18th century - under the impulse of Queen Mary, Consort of James II. At a guess, I am inclined to loacte this picture among the 18th. century Italian masters - possibly Mengs or more likely Trevisani.

Tobias Kirby, born 1 January 1803 at Tallow, Co. Waterford, vice rector and rector of the Irish College, Rome, and Titular Bishop of Letaea (1881) and subsequently titular Archbishop of Epheseus (1886-1895), had an interesting collections of Italian masters with several fine pictures by Trevisani, an interesting picture that could well be by Reni, and several Madonnas by 18th.century Italian painters of the Roman/Bolognese school. He left his collection to the Irish College in Rome after his death on 20 January 1895. The collection was plundered by a series of unenlightened avaritious rectors of the same college. The vestiges of the collection can be seen in the public rooms of the Irish College, Rome. Kirby was an indefatigable letter writer and his correspondence with Cardinal Cullen of Dublin is in the archive of Dublin Diocese while Cullen's correspondence (and that of many others in Ireland) is in the archive of the Irish Colege in Rome. This correspondence often contains material about the purchase of artistic fittings for churches in Ireland - as demonstrated by the purchase of two altars for Mitchelstown, Co. Cork that were subsequently shipped through Civitavecchia to Cork and eventually erected in the parish church and in the Presentation Convent. Both, unfortunately have disappeared and there is the distinct possibility that the over educated ladies of the Presentation sold the altar that was in their Mitchelstown convent!!.

[Praxiteles]

Some interior shots of the RC cathedral in Waterford, Just restored/refurbished.You can still smell the paint. It's not actually as dark as this, it's a new camera.

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The choir stalls,as well as I could photograph them with bad light and no tripod:(
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I am also glad to see that Ake was able to furnish a picture of the magnificent choir stalls in Waterford Cathedral. As you will notice, these were never made to be planked against a wall: they ware intended to serve as a screen. they did so until quite recently whjen some enlightened person moved them from their original position and planked them against the wall.

[janda]

As an aside, is there much information on the vernacular architecture of farm houses in the regions.
Here is one I came across just outside Wexford Town


Some more here somewhere

[ake]

Jerpoint Abbey, Kilkenny. Here I've photoshoped the south aisle into existence. Actually I used paint.

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in reality;
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[ake]

St.Iberius' church (Anglican), Wexford town, now open everyday! It's a little Georgian gem, though not untouched by the Victorians. The plasterwork in the sanctuary is top class, and surrounding it are exquisite Georgian altar rails, moved from St.George's in Dublin (where Wellington was married). There's also a fine bust by Foley and some good monuments.
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