Mary’s Pro Cathedral

The Pro-Cathedral Church of the Conception of the Virgin Mary was built on the site of Lord Annsley’s town house at Marlborough Street and Elephant Lane, which had been acquired by Archbishop Thomas Troy in 1803 for £5,100. The building commenced in 1814 and was completed in November 1825. Plans for a church in the revivalist Greek Doric style, submitted by an architect who signed himself “P”, won the commission. It is accepted that the architect was George Papworth (1781-1855). Born in London, he moved to Ireland in 1806, and won commissions for Grattan Bridge, King’s (Heuston) Bridge (1828), Camolin Park, Wexford (1815), the Dublin Library in D’Olier Street (1818-1820) and Sir Patrick Dunn’s Hospital and was eventually Professor of Architecture in the Royal Hibernian Academy. The Pro-Cathedral contains monuments to Cardinal Paul Cullen and his immediate predecessor Archbishop Daniel Murray by Thomas Farrell. The apse is decorated by an alto-relief of the Ascension by John Smyth. Thomas Kirk (1781-1845) supplied a monument for the Reverend Thomas Clarke: two figures of Religion and Charity bewteen an urn which was his first exhibited work at the Society of Artists (as Piety and Chastity) in 1813. A relief of the Good Shepherd and a monument to William and Anne Byly are also attributed to Kirk. The organ is by the Dublin organbuilder John White. Its present architectural case was build by WIlliam Hill c. 1900. The great artistic treasure of the Pro-Cathedral, however, was the High Altar by Peter Turnerelli (1774-1839). Born in Belfast, Turnerelli had been deeply influenced by Canova (who much admired Turnerelli’s bust of Grattan (1812). From 1798-1803 drawing master to the princesses of George III, he was appointed Sculptor in ordinary in 1801. While his busts of George III, Washington and Wellington (1815), Louis XVIII (1816), Henry Grattan (1812 and Daniel O’Connell (1829) are well known, his master piece was the High Altar of the Pro-Cathedral with its splendidly proportioned mensa, reredos and ciborium. In 1886, rather incongrously, three stained-glass windows were installed behind the High Altar. Archbishop Dermot Ryan introduced a reordering to the Pro-Cathedral in the late 1970s. The architect for the re-ordering was Professor Cathal O’Neill . In an act beggering civilized belief, he demolished Turnerelli’s High Altar and reredos. The praedella of the altar mensa was salvaged and re-used to form a new altar erected on a lower plain in a hum drum extended sanctuary covered with carpet. The neo-classical altar rails were removed. The canopied and dignified neo-classical Throne was dismantled. The pulpit was reduced to the redundancy of a side aisle and a few surviving vestiges of the High Altar scattered about the interior. The Ciborium of Turnerelli’s High Altar was conserved and placed on a squat disproportioned plinth on a lower plain. The result has been the complete loss of the graceful, proportioned, symetrically articulated dimensions of the Apse and of the building itself which now lacks a central focus and suffers from the same focal void as Longford and Thurles. It seem strange that nobody seems to have realized that the High Altar was custom built to a location it occupied for 150 years. Attempts to relieve the focal void by drapery have not been convincing. It is suggested that at the time of the reordering, the significance of the High Altar and its provenance may not have been known to the architect responsible for its demolition. In Irish circumstances, the destruction of such a major work of art may possibly have cultural significance not too dissimilar to the bombing of Monte Cassino or the feuerblitzing of the Frauenkirche in Dresden.

Originally posted by Praxiteles on reordering and destruction of irish cathedrals – St Colmans Cathedral, Cobh thread

The original plan was to build the Pro-Cathedral on Sackville Street on the site of what is now the GPO. The project had to be abandoned and a site found in a side street since the law forbade the construction of a Catholic church on the King’s highway. At this period, while France had been through the throws of an egalitarian revolution, in Ireland (and indeed in England) the prevailing social mores insisted that Catholics should know their place in society. That meant that at home they should only be found downstairs; and in public they should confine themselves to the alley-ways and back street of towns. The first Catholic church built on the King’s highway in Ireland was St. Paul’s, Arran Quay. In many towns, especially in the south of Ireland, the problem was solved by purchasing two plots of land, one on the highway the other immediately behind it. The Catholic church was built on the latter plot and the former kept free. This is why in towns such as Mallow and Fermoy, the Catholic churches are fronted by elegant gardens or railed off areas.

Simple solution, get rid of the railings to the Department of Education. Plenty more space to see the ‘Pro and a new green space for Northside Dublin.

I remember reading proposals by Cahil O’Neill that the railings of the cathedral and the Dep. of Education should be removed and that Marlborough St. should be pedestrianised. On paper it sounds like a great plan, but we seem to be forgeting about the reason the the railings are there in the first place.

Ah now in fairness it’s the Dept of Education and Science!!!
There could hardly be a security risk, unless from JC and LC students trying to forge exam results.

Remember what happended to St. Peter’s in Drogheda when the railings were removed from from the West Street front? Another stupid proposal by Cathal O’Neill who will not be around to collect the detritus every morning.

No idea what you’re on about, sorry.

It’s a cramped little street, with little to no imapact on the traffic of the city. But has potential and has the Pro and the park of the Dept as well as decent greenery in parts along its length.

Knock ’em down, I say!

I was talking about posting # 6 re removal of railings around the pro- Cathedral. What I was saying was simply that when you remove them, you inevitably attract the less poite elements of society to shelter in you portico and surrounds. When these congregate, they have a tendency to creste a mess which has to be cleaned every morning. The example of St. Peter’s Drogheda was merely to illustrate the point. The problem with the Drogheda perron now completely exposed to West St. has escalated ot the point that it may become necessary to remove the shrines in front of the Church to avoid further valdalism of same. Apart from the practical question of the railings in front of the Pro Cathedral, it might not be a bad idea to investigate their historical provenance before demolishing them – especially in view the discovery of the High Altar’s provenance subsequent to its total demolition.

I agree about the ‘Pro’s railings. Sure look at the church on Arran Quay down by the Four Courts…they’ve had to put in huge new gates on the portico to stop vagrants kipping there.