reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches

@Praxiteles wrote:

The feature of the recessed arch on the facade of churches by A. W. N. Pugin, E.W. Pugin, G.C. Ashlin is almost a trade mark. Here Praxiteles is posting a few examples:Glastuhle in Dublin, Barntown Co. Wexford, Barton on Irwell in England, Dadizele in Belgium, and St. Mary’s in Mallow, Co. Cork.

Can anyone suggest medieval prototypes fro this feature of recessed arches?

Prominent medieval prototypes with which AWN Pugin would have been particularly familiar are to be found on the facades of Lincoln Minster and Peterborough Cathedral. He would have seen Lincoln Minster as early as 1818 when, at the age of six, he visited the Willson family there in the company of his father Auguste Pugin.

The feature of the recessed arch re-appears on E.W. Pugin and G. C. Ashlin’s West facade of St. Colman’s Cathedral.

As at Lincoln, the upper reaches of the facade reproduce the dimond-cut ashlar – in the case of Cobh blue granite dressed with limestone is used.

The West front of Peterborough (1118-1238). The triple arcade is without precedent or immediate successor:

And to return to the business of the Papal Altar in St. Peter’s, here is another shot of how things now work since the restoration:

@Praxiteles wrote:

The West front of Peterborough (1118-1238). The triple arcade is without precedent or immediate successor:

The Cathedral of Peterborough, once an abbey but spared destruction owing to the fact that Queen Catherine of Aragon is entombed therein, stands in magnificently for Barchester Cathedral in the BBC adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s novel Barchester Towers.

Although this version of BT is of the highest quality, featuring such stellar actors as Donald Pleasance, Nigel Hawthorne, Geraldine McEwan, Alan Rickman, Clive Swift, and Susanna Hampshire, the book is even better. Such insight into ecclesiastical life.

Reading the Chronicles of Cobh on this thread is rather like perusing a sequel of the Barchester novels, describing as they do a state of affairs that might have obtained had the odious reformer, Obadiah Slope, been successful in his climb to the top of the tree.

St. Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, Co. Cork

The (slightly) recessed arch of South Transept.

The composition here of rose window (based on the North Rose of Laon Cathedral) and gallery with the arch not extending the whole height of the facade, is a feature more typical of the work of JJ McCArthy e.g. Monaghan (west); St. Saviour’s, Maynooth College Chapel (west).

I know I have brought this up before, but today the middle aisle on the southern side was littered with bits of stone from the overhead stone arches of the clerstory. When this first started a few years ago it was concentrated in one area, but now the dusting of stone runs from the pulput to the back of the church. It has been raining heavily in the last two days and after rain the amount of stone and chips raining down inside the cathedral increases. At different time large pieces of stone have fallen. All of this has been pointed out to the administrator of the Cathedral but so far nothing has been done.

The recent report by Mr. Cacciotti, the Cobh Town Architect doesn’t mention this problem at all, as one presumes he did not see the stone dusting as it had been cleaned up, as it is regularly.

Again one must assume that water is getting into the roof somehow and tracking down the ribs of the roof onto the stone capitals which are disintegrating as a result.

This means that all three major jobs which have, so far, been undertaken on Cobh Cathedral, at a cost of over €3,000,000 have been badly done and have left the Cathedral, in some cases worse off than before any work was started.
1. The cleaning of the exterior walls have left the walls in a far worse state than they were originally.
2. The installing of underfloor heating has seen the throwing out of a beautiful wood block floor and its replacement with an inferior parquet floor. This has also resulted in the lifting of mosaic tiles all over the church due to the contracting and expanding of the floor.
3. Re-roofing the Cathedral. While this has stopped the worst of the leaks and flooding which used to occur, we are still left with a situation where water is ingressing somewhere at roof level and this is destroying the stone of the capitals of the pillars in the church. This we can see, how much more damage is being done that is not evident to the naked eye?

In any other situation shoody work such as this would see the owners insisting that the contractors return and fix the problems, but this is Cobh and the money spent by the Trustees and the Steering Committee is not their own money (it was collected from the people of Cobh and the Diocese) and they couldn’t care less. Seemingly the new secretary of the Restoration Fund doesn’t think there is anything at all amiss in the Church. Gives one great hope for the future!!!!!!

[We await with baited breath to see how this one will play itself out!!![/QUOTE]

I hope you mean bated – or has a trap been set for poor little Robin?

@Rhabanus wrote:

Prax,

Can you explain the formation of the stonework beneath the lancet windows supporting the rose on the S. transept? They seem, from my screen, to incline towards the centre of the facade. Is this intentional? Or owing to the passage of time? Or owing to some other intervention? Just strikes me as odd.

Thanks for posting the article by Fr Lang on Liturgical Latin. Ecellent reading!

The oddness may derive from the picture. there is another 30 feet of wall beneath the level taht you see in the photograph. The photogaph shows where the arch ends.

Ake- not a thing, see Post 3614 by Gianlorenzo and from Prax last week

From to-day’s Cobh Parish Newsletter:

“After a number of meetings and research we would like to announce that restoration work on the entrance and doors of St. Colman’s Cathedral will be taking place in the near future. Tenders are at this time being sought for the work which will be funded by the Cathedral Restoration Fund. We will be informing you again in more detail prior to works being carried out. We thank the people of Cobh and of the Diocese for their support in the restoration of the Cathedral for generations to come. Fr. Michael Leamy Adm.”