reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches

The substitution of the panelled door on the right with that horrible plywood thing says it all. This is an example of what Ake referred to earlier as the painting over of this beautiful work as though it were a rusty iron gate. Awful, just awful and tasteless!

@ake wrote:

Appalling, utterly appalling. Who are these architectural sadists?

All the more appalling when one considers the economic depression of the 1930s and the expense that must have been lavished on the stencilling and other features.

By contrast, the 1980s devastation demonstrates the sacrifice of Cain – leftovers and done on the cheap; reducing the House of God to a shack.

Note the ironic touch: the sacristan has placed a green dust cover over the plywood altar, so as to keep the linen altar cloth nice and clean when Mass is celebrated. As if, amidst the sacrilegious devastation wreaked here, it matters very much about the altar cloth.

Some amateur artist went mad with those plaster statues.

It’s rather frightening to think what a few feet of wall-to-wall carpet and whitewash can accomplish. Even St Joseph has had his share of whitewash applied, and quite liberally too!

Where are the culprits today? This world? The next world? Australia? Florida?

I quiet agree, Ferg, but let us be thankful that everything is more or less still here and not in a skip heap as with Longford, Armagh, Killarney and very nearly Cobh. The earlier organ case was a good deal more successful than the present one and took greater account of the window.

@ake wrote:

Thanks, btw I presume you know that the full size pics are on flickr? The ‘all size’ button is above the pic to the right. Interesting to see the fine woodwork on the organ balcony at the west end- compare to what’s there now! The place truly has been wrecked, with those ‘furnishings’ in the crossing and chancel. I know this has been said before but the crossing now looks uncannily like the bridge of a spaceship, especially with the ridiculous jet black cathedra and blood red carpet poised on a height, ready to beam to warp 5.

Spec of that new organ available here: http://www.iol.ie/~rod/organ/specs/kilkenny/cath_stmary.html looks like a right box of whistles. Just noticed that about the gallery, horrible.

I agree with Prax, whilst the new stuff is awful, I think its preferable to what happened in Monaghan which also looks like a spaceship/bathroom showroom, but with ALL the original furnishings trashed. In fact, its probably also better than the situation in Newry, where the orignal material was hacked to pieces and randomly put back together. At least in Kilkenny, a full restoration would quite easily be possible.

@Fearg wrote:

Spec of that new organ available here: http://www.iol.ie/~rod/organ/specs/kilkenny/cath_stmary.html looks like a right box of whistles. Just noticed that about the gallery, horrible.

I agree with Prax, whilst the new stuff is awful, I think its preferable to what happened in Monaghan which also looks like a spaceship/bathroom showroom, but with ALL the original furnishings trashed. In fact, its probably also better than the situation in Newry, where the orignal material was hacked to pieces and randomly put back together. At least in Kilkenny, a full restoration would quite easily be possible.

Ah, I see the new organ was installed in 1981 – just around the time the wreck job was done!

How did they manage to keep a straight face putting THAT carpet down?

@Praxiteles wrote:

A good question…someone lost the run of himself and must think he is the Pope!

St Saviour’s in Dublin now has a very similarly garish red carpet as well.. someone must have gotten a good deal on the off cuts!

A propos of early Irish Neo-Gothic exemplars I offer the attached for your consideration: St. Mary’s, Buttevant, Co. Cork built by Charles Cottrell (of Hanover St., Cork) 1832-1836.

Graceful, proportionate massing, evoking York minster’s west facade, sans towers.

Until recently such beauty was considered humanly possible and worthy of the sacrifice of a few prelates’ new all-wheel-drive Porsches. Elas

And here is view of the south side of the church. It is interesting to note that while fine cut stone is used on the north and west facades, probably for econimic reasons smaller irregular stone was used on the south and east facades. Clearly, this was a matter of aesthetics for georgian classicism still dictated cut stone as the norm in 1832. Not until Pugin’s True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture published in 1841 was it realized that smaller irregular stone was more in keeping with the medieval norm and gave a better wall texture. The contrast between the cut stone and the irregular stone can be seen at the meeting of the west and south elevations while the comparison between the gothic revival and the genuine medieval can be made with the south elevation and the tower.

Also of interest is the tower on the south side. This is the remains of a medieval tower house that was incorporated into the building of the 1832 church exemplifing a principle insisted on by August Reichensperger in his Fingerzeige auf dem Gebeit der kirchlichen Kunst of 1854 whereby medieval vestiges should not be demolished but incorporated into revival buildings and, if necessary, given a new function. In this case, medieval tower house becomes revival bell tower.

The tracery in the south window seems to be influenced by the that in the east window of Chester Cathedral.

Some more shots of St. Mary’s Church, Buttevant, Co. Cork, an important example of the gothic revival style in its early phase.