reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches

@Praxiteles wrote:

The Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Borrisoleigh, Co. Tipperary by Walter Doolin (1892)

Perhaps James1852 might know something about the decoration of the apse and the other stencil work.

The interior of Sacred Heart would be all the more charming without (a) the cube of a butcher block down in front and (b) that ridiculous credence table surmounted by the ubiquitous, de rigueur plant. It’s like giving the Mona Lisa a snaggletooth and a sprig of heather in her hair. Why not a tartan kilt to boot? Hoot man!

Less certainly would have been more in this case: more to appreciate.

The butcher block can always be hauled off to a local barn as a work bench, sent gratis to the town’s butcher shop as an early Christmas gift, or simply relegated to the kitchen of the parish hall where it can serve as the centrepiece for some real commeuntiy-building and plenty of fellowship. Of course it just might make a suitable marker for the grave of Austin Flannery – whenever the Butcher of St Saviour’s Dublin should shuffle off this mortal coil.

@ake wrote:

Recent photographs of two Cistercian churches]http://www.flickr.com/photos/58086761@N00/sets/72157600013262197/[/url]
and Holycross, restored; http://www.flickr.com/photos/58086761@N00/sets/72157600017663733/

Holycross; The first problem is the farmyard barn whitewashing of the walls, with plastering over the rubblework in only a few areas. That can easily be ignored however beside the ‘liturgical’ ‘furnishings’ in the church. These are all in the modern ‘art’ ‘style’ and are extremely ugly and intrusive. As well as that there is awful modern stained glass in some of the transept chapels, unfortunate since there is beautiful clear glass everywhere else. In the nave the arrangement is decent with the benches neatly aligned and the confession boxes at the west wall- the only real problems here are the televisions in the aisles. Yes, actual big,old,crappy televisions. What are these for? A video link to the altar?, crucial for ‘involving’ the congregation in the mass? (Martin Luther would be proud) You could hear a penny drop from the other end of this tiny cistercian abbey church!

There are brutally crude candle stands all over the transept chapels along with all sorts of other junk, and outright blasphemous altars ; in one a venerated bulging cube with satanic looking scribbling all over it. Don’t get too upset however as all of this are extremely removable, and will require nothing more than to lift them up and fling them out the door into the skip when the time comes.

The cloister walk was a decent job, though it’s strewn with disorganised benches for some reason and the joining of the arches on the outside contains some very poor modern filler work.

It is amazing that so much has survived here and equally amazing that the restoration of the cloister has not been completed. This gives the impression that the steam ran out towards the end of the project and something should be done about it.

A feature of Holy Cross that stkes me is the steep gradiant towards the west in the present floor. This causes me to wonder whether it is an original feature of the church or an interpretation that may not have taken account of the fact that early French churches were entered through the west door which lead to a flight of steps down to the floor level. The phenomenon explains why in many ruined medieval churches in Ireland a grave-yard can be inserted into the nave and chancel of the church which still can be entered by the west door at same level as the graveyard.

This feature of a lower nave floor-level is clearly to be seen in the Cathedral of St. André in Bordeaux (consecrated 1096) and in the Abbey Church of Fontvrault in Anjou (1101) which was the mausoleum of the Plantagenet dynasty.

Here is a view of the west interior of Fontvrault clearly showing the flight of steps:

And of St. André de Bordeaux:

Between 1792 and 1963 Fontvralt was a prison. When the inmates departed and the complex was handed over to the French Culture Ministry it was in a pretty delapidated condition – not too far beyond the present state of Cobh Cathedral. A total restoration was required. When I was last there there was no floor in the nave and the effigys of Isabella of Angoulem and Richard I were all stored in the chevet chapels. Visitors had to make their way around the place on gangplanks. I am inclined to suspect that the Batiments de France would be careful enough to have installed a replica of the original floor in the original material.

A feature of the Cistercian houses was to built beside rivers rather than on mountains like the Benedictines. That a river flows past the east end of Holy cross would have been taken into account by its architects – even if it had steps inside the west door. In Cork, Cistercian houses such as those at Fermoy (de Castro Dei) and Midleton (de Coro Dei) exemplify the principle -though practically nothing exists of them.

And a further example in Dublin is Sts Michael and John’s:

My goodness, what is all this?

I have nothing against devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, but I would point out the inappropriatness of using clndelabra in this fashion since these are reserved for Benedictionof the Blessed Sacrament (and on a minor thing, I would point out that seven branched candelabra are supposed to be used when a bishop presides at benediction). Also, placing objects such as flower pots or vases directly onto the altar is not (and never was) liturgically permitted.

Do I notice pieces of the original plaster stilol on the walls?

It is the rubbish and the tatter and the untidyness that is so awful in Holy Cross. I have only just noticed the two empty boxes dumped in front of the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament.

There is absolutely no need for speakers in this tiny little church
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@THE_Chris wrote:

Are they trying to be subtle by more or less writing “MJ” on the wall?

I honestly thought at first, that someone had broken in at night and spray painted “MJ” on the wall.. what on earth is it supposed to be?

@Praxiteles wrote:

I honestly could not tell you what it supposed to be. This is the problem with esoteric art. It is al very meaningful but that meaning is not immediately communicated and has to be explicitated.

I am inclined to think that Holy Cross is on a process that will soon see it looking rather like what it did when Bartlett did his engravings in the 1840s.

I could be mistaken, but I’m fairly sure that the tracery from the large window in that engraving, is one of those that was recreated between the sections of the basilica at Knock.

Here is a wonderful idea for the would-be restorers of Cobh Cathedral taken from Private Eye (16th March 2007) . Surprising that none of them came up with – given the fees demanded for its wreckage: