reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches
- This topic has 7,926 replies, 103 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 4 months ago by
.
- Posts
@GregF wrote:
I dunno if this has been discussed before on a different thread but I saw on the Irish Times this morning that Kevin Myers raises the issue of the proposed renovations of St Colmans Cathedral in Cobh. I had heard this before and couldn’t believe it. This is a fine Victorian Gothic cathedral designed by Pugin. Surely any tampering with the orignal features would be an act of vandalism and must not go ahead. As I said before, the councils, clergy etc… here in Ireland can’t seem to leave well alone regarding important public buildings, statues etc…..All Corkonians should be up in arms and stop any proposed tampering that should alter the cathedral in any way, especially as it was probably the poor local Cork Catholics that provided the funds to build the cathedral in the first place.
(Bishop McGee of Cloyne is the culprit. Get writing your protest letters rebel Corkonians!)
News on the grapevine is that Bishop Magee is receiving a lot of letters, well done Gregf 😀
More for Mosaic 1, courtesy of http://www.foscc.com
Detail of Mosaic in Good Counsel shrine.
Detail of Mosaic in Sacred Heart shrine.
Medallion in front of Pieta Chapel
Medallion in front of Sacred Heart Chapel
[img]http://www.foscc.com/images/slideshow/Medallion%20in%20front%20of%20Sacred%20Heart%[/img]Yes, that is why I address them to Mosaic 1 who has a special interest in Oppenheimer.
As the last didn’t upload I will try again.Medallion in front of Sacred Heart Chapel
Re Baptistry of Thurles Cathedral: Some more examples of external baptistries:
Florence: http://www.mega.it/eng/egui/monu/bc.htm
Interior of the Florentine Baptistry: http://firenze.arounder.com/florence_baptistry/fullscreen.html
The Porta del Paradiso: http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/g/ghiberti/paradiso/
Another example of the prototype for Thurles Cathedral is Cremona with its typical romanesque complex of Cathedral, external baptistry and campanile:
http://www.italiamedievale.org/sito_acim/concorso_2004/concorso_2004_cremona.html
Aother prototype for Thurles is the Cathedral of Monza :
I have followed with great interest the development of this theme for the past few weeks. Returning to the original question – Cobh Cathedral – what I can’t understand is this: why the insistence on pushing this proposal through on the part of the Diocese? I can understand that a Bishop might feel he has the right to alter his altar (!), but when it becomes as contentious and widely opposed as this attempt in Cobh seems to be, mightn’t it be better not to insist on a right and choose the gentlemanly, not to mention pastoral, route of listening to one’s people?
Now a suggestion for Bishop Magee – for whom I have great respect – it would be useful for him to read the remarks on this page to see that his legacy will be forever blighted if he pushes ahead with this programme. We see that even after many years, E. Casey is remembered (despite his other follies) above all as having initiated the rather vulgar (sorry, but it’s the most apt word) re-decoration of St Mary’s; J. Duffy, otherwise a conspicuously invisibile (not always a bad thing) member of the hierarchy, even in his own diocese, is known nationally only as the man who presided over a disappointingly crass re-ordering of Monaghan. I could go on. [As an aside – has anyone a picture of Monaghan’s interior in its original state; I have never seen such an image.]
I’m sure the Bishop of Cloyne would not want to provide for himself a legacy of equal, if minor, infamy?…
:confused:The problem with the Bishop of Cloyne, despite having spent nearly thirty years in Rome, is that he knows relatively little about art or architecture and is dependent on advisers who know even less. The project for the sanctuary of Cobh Cathedral is primarily the brain (!) child of one Denis Reidy, the Parish Priest of Carrigtwohill. He believes that he is reproducing in Cobh a solution that was adopted in the much vaster Cathedral of Milan and expects to have the plaudits of the plebs for this before he shuffels off his eccelsiastical coil in a few years time. When the Cobh project was first mooted, an advisory committee was formed basically of a few nuns and few of he more pliable members of the parish. What they knew about the building or its importance is debatable but they recommended a plan put before them by the good Reidy and catagorically excluded a number of less radical alternatives. When the ridiculousness of this was exposed in the letters page of the Irish Independent (23 December 1999) the project was temporarily shelved. A new advisory committee was formed, this time of several prominent artists, and charged with the task of advising Bishop Magee on what to do. Several of the artists, however, disagreed with the ethos of the advisory committee and resigned (among them Imogen Stuart and Ken Thompson). Eventually, a recommendation was made to Bishop Magee not so surprisingly recommending something very like the previous project. An art advisory committee unanimously accepted the proposal as did the Historic Churches Advisory Committe of the diocese of Cloyne. In their courtly rush to faun, neither of these bodies thought of asking to have a heritage impact study conducted on the impact of the proposed plan on the historic interior of the building. Another committee was formed to choose an architect to execute the plan and, not at all surprisingly, the architect chosen was Professor Cathal O’Neill. His appointment was recommended by the art and architecture committee of the diocese and by yet another body, the Cathedral Restoration Committee. With such a quiverfull of committees and experts, the poor advice-needy Bishop had no option but to go along with the Milan solution of D. Reidy. In all of this, no notice was taken of the common plebs of Cobh who would only be called upon to pay for the exercise.
The Italian inspiration for Thurles is most interesting, particularly the connection with Pisa. Cobh, as is well known, is inspired by the tight and compact models provided by French Gothic cathedrals, as distinct from the more relaxed and rambling English Gothic style, seen for example in Lincoln.
An intriguing connection can be established between Cobh and Chartres – the tympanum over the west door in Cobh seems to have been inspired by that of the Royal Portal in Chartres (Christ and four evangelists), while the tympana of Reims and Notre-Dame de Paris are completely different. 😎
Does anyone have information as to whether the planners of Cobh were deliberately imitating the Chartres model? Admittedly Cobh is more complex with the addition of Irish saints.
In any case, those responsible for the construction of Cobh had an extraordinary knowledge of both Italian and French prototypes, as is emerging from the discussions on this thread.From the images of the Cathedral of Norte Dame de Chartres in the inclosed link, I think that it is more than clear that it is an important prototype for the building of Cobh Cathedral. The tympanum of the Royal Portal was clearly an influential ptototype for the West Portal in Cobh, but then so was the roof line of Chartres which is clearly evident in the drawing of the south elevation. Detach the apse ambulatory from the Chartres prototype and the line becomes even more clearly similar to Cobh. Note also the shallow and narrow south transept both in Chratres and in Cobh.
Chartres – South elevation
Cobh – South elevation
To facilitate comparison of the south elevation of Chartres with that of Cobh, enclosed is a copy of E.W. Pugin and G. C. Ashlin’s contract drawing of 1869 for the south elevation of Cobh.
The last three upper windows of the sanctuary in Cobh seem to be directly modelled on their Chartres counterparts, while the lower three windows of the sanctuary seem to have been modelled on the wndows of the Chartres ambulatory.
The clerestory windows in the nave in Cobh Cathedral seem to have been drawn directly from the windows in the south aisle of Chartres.
For the tower on the north corner of the west facade in Cobh, the south tower on the west facade of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Amiens must surely have been the prototype?
Rheims Cathedral is also a prototype for Cobh especially in matters relating to the internal decoration and to external detail e.g. the figure of Our Lady in the porch of the West Portal in Rheims.
Another undoubted inspiration for interior details in Cobh is the use of pierced quatrefoil by Lorenzo Ghiberti in the panels of the North Door in the Florence Baptistery. I attach an example.
One wonders what inspiration lies behind the O’Neill plan – perhaps a bathroom showroom or a projected Olympic pool? 😀Correct Sangallo. There are thirty such panels in the spandrels of the nave in Cobh Cathedral all framed in cornices of pierced quadrafoils directly inspired by Ghiberti’s doors in the Baptistry of Florence.
In Cobh, the nave panels depict the early and more recent history of the Church in Ireland.
The O’Neill project does appear to have quite as distinct an artistic pedigree. But, after the Turnerelli event in the Pro Cathedral, I am sure that Professor O’Neill would not shrink from improving on Ghiberti too.
Regarding influences on Prof. O’Neill, one should note that in the 1950s he studied in Chicago under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, known for his connections with the Bauhaus movement and for developing what has been called a “monumental ‘skin and bone’ architecture” (i.e. glass and steel boxes). 😮
Other Irish architects who sat at the feet of the same master were Peter Doyle and Robin Walker.
Two interesting links for information on Mies van der Rohe:http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Ludwig_Mies_van_der_Rohe.html
http://www.designboom.com/portrait/mies/bg.html
As a suitable waltz for the reception following the wedding of Gothic Revival and Bauhaus, I would suggest the danse macabre.
However, one shudders to think what the offspring will look like! – :rolleyes:Another prototype for St. Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh is the Cathedral of St. Pierre in Saintes where we find the combination of the white caen stone of the walls off set by a timber vaulting.
Saintes Cathedral:
The Cobh variant on the theme:
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
