reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches

St Mary’s Church, Youghal, built in 1796.

The Cathedral of St Mary and St Anne, Cork.

Here we see the remains of G. Pain’s plaster gothic vault of the nave built in 1828:

http://l.yimg.com/www.flickr.com/images/spaceball.gif

Are you sure it is Youghal?

Concerning the pro-Cathedral Church of St. Patrick, Fermoy, Co. Cork, Praxiteles has been shown a description dating from 1 July 1828 which requires revision of the idea that the church was given its gothic interior in 1842.
The description says: “The chapel is a fine and spacious edifice 100 x 150 feet begun in 1810 or 1811 and finished very lately. It is ceiled and stuccoed and has commodious and handsome galleries, and and an altar which though handsome is not as commodius as might be wished. Its style is gothic on a plan furnished by Payne which was not accurately understood by the builder. It cost £300. It also has a handsome and well executed altar piece ( a Crucifixion) by a young and promising artist (O’Keefe) which cost £30″.

The description here can only refer to the internal decoration of the church in Fermoy as £300 seems far too little to build a church of these dimensions (especially when Charleville church which was begun in 1812 cost £4,000 -explained in terms of inflation brought on the French wars).

Also, the altar referred to cannot have been a gothic altar as such would not have had a altar picture of the crucifixion as described. Clearly, we are dealing here with a classical altar piece of a kind associated with the work of Brother Augustine O’Riordan. It would seem that this altar was removed in the further gothicization of the church in 1842 which saw an extension to the east and the installation of an east window. This altar was again replaced in 1867 by Pugin and Ashlin’s gothicization of the exterior. The final development here was the replacement of the wooden altar rails with a marbel set in 1916 and the construction of Seamus Murphy’s marbel pulpit in c. 1930.

Regrettably, there is no sign of O’Keef’e’s Crucifixion; Pugin and Ashlin’s altar of 1867 has been well and truly pulverized; and, worst of all, Seamus Murphy’s pulpit was vandalistically demolished in the first wave of suicidal iconoclasm in the 1970s (Praxiteles understands that some of the panels from the pulpit may be in storage with the local family who comissioned the pulpit).

George Payne’s gothicization of the interior of St. Patrick’s, Fermoy, c. 1828 is exactly contemporaneous with his provision of a very similar gothic interior to the Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Anne in Cork (1828) following a fire there in 1822.

The building and decoration of St. Patrick’s, Fermoy, was undertaken by the Rev. Dr. Barry who had been educated in Rome and was parish priest of Fermoy 1772 to 1840.

@Praxiteles wrote:

Here is a view of George Payne’s ceiling in the Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Anne in Cork dating from 1828:

Note though, how in Cork the pillars have incorrectly been stripped back to reveal the wood. Wheras in Fermoy they are painted, allowing the fantasy gothick appear somewhat more convincing.

@PVC King wrote:

I hate that fad that was all too prevalent in the 1990’s for stripping painted joinery and structural timbers.

Thankfully they didn’t paint the interior sky blue to complete the ‘natural look’.

But I agree with your general point and feel that a repainting would be a good result.

There is quite a bit of suspect decoration up there – look at the floor around the font for instance:

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I feel Dizzy!!

@Praxiteles wrote:

That is just awful! The daft idea of having a primitive baptistery INSIDE the church saya just how much Richard Hurley knows about anything – and then the anachronism of setting the baptismal fount directly ontto the floor of the depression – RH would have benefitted from a visit to the Lateran Baptistery to see how this sort of operation happened in a genuine HISTORICAL evolution. It would have saved us from his efforts at ecclesiastical Disneyland!

And where is the cover of the fount?

Well, I did not see it in the North Transept, where the pulpit and high altar have been abandoned..

And this must surely get the crap-of-the-year award:

Richard Hurley’s apologia for the spoilation of St Mary and St Anne’s and he has the gall to tell us that:

The interior restoration has respected the patrimony of the building’s heritage. Many fine pieces have been restored and given new life in the new plan. Paint and plaster have been removed from stone and wood, revealing formerly hidden beautiful materials. The magnificent timber columns in the nave are a fine example of this work. The Bishop’s chair, the stalls, the old pulpit, the old altar and reredos, the Baptismal Font, the Shrine of Blessed Thadeaus McCarthy, the Hogan Sculptures; were all subject to Planning Permission restrictions. The retention and relocation of these and many other artefacts will cement the link with the past, and the present with the future.

http://www.rha.ie/cork.html

@Praxiteles wrote:

The Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Anne, Cork

This is what it used to look like firstly before Boyd-Barrett got his hands on to extend the sancturay in 1964 and before Richard Hurley devastated it. On the wall behind the High Altar, the statues of the Apostles by John Hogan can just about be seen. They disappeared after Boyd-Barrett’s composition was built and did not reappear until c. 2000.

Don’t suppose you have close ups of the statues.

An aside; there is another copy of the Belzoni in Kilkenny RC Cathedral in Limerick RC Cath., both autographed. Disapointing

The Chapel Royal of the Holy Trinity, Dublin Castle:

Plaster ceiling supported on clustered reed columns of 1805, similar to those of St. Patrick’s Fermoy, and St. Mary and St Anne’s Cork.