reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches
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Indeed, Cornerstone Construction, from their web page, seems to be the ones whose services are most needed in Cobh Cathedral – they seem to know all about leaking (new) roofs and decaying stonework. They did quite a bit of work in Monkstown, and in the Town Hall in Cobh, and in Castlehyde and elsewhere in Cork. So……
Prax: judging by their portfolio, Cornerstone have done some prestigious work. Not being on the ground, it’s hard to judge: do you think they’re up to the scale of what is needed at Cobh cathedral?
@johnglas wrote:
Prax: judging by their portfolio, Cornerstone have done some prestigious work. Not being on the ground, it’s hard to judge: do you think they’re up to the scale of what is needed at Cobh cathedral?
Do not know for certain yet taht they are in on it. Rest assured, however, that FOSCC will probably go over everything with a fine tooth comb – this is especially necessary as much of the work done in the so called “restoration” was shoddy, poor and sub-standard. For eample, the problem of water pouring onto the Portland stone reventment of the South arcade was caused by the “new” roof. Even at its worst,. the old roof did not let in water to this extent and certainly not over the south arcade.
If only we could take the cathedral out of the hands of the incompetents, and put into a preservation trust. It’s a disaster waiting to happen with these Church people in charge. Or rather the disaster is already arrived and on going.
Dropped into St.Nicolas, CARRICK ON Suir today. Once upon a time it looked like this
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later it regressed to this
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This year it was repainted again. What colour? You guessed it.
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Look at the north side altar; and what’s behind the screen!;
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Really beyond a joke at this stage. And look at the south altar;
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what are those benches doing there?! Benches go in the nave and aisles for people to sit on them! They don’t go in the sanctuary! How can they do this? It’s like someone with absolutely zero knowledge of what a church is or what goes on in it and which different parts are for what different things, is put in charge of arranging the furniture inside, and then just goes about placing different things in this spot and that spot, wherever it seems to look pleasant!
@ake wrote:
If only we could take the cathedral out of the hands of the incompetents, and put into a preservation trust. It’s a disaster waiting to happen with these Church people in charge. Or rather the disaster is already arrived and on going.
I have been on before about the lack of INSTITUTIONAL maintenance at Cobh Cathedral. This leaves it in the hands of local celrgy which appears to be slide as far as competence is concerned.
ake:when are the kitsch police going to raid this church? The colour scheme I could live with (it will be repainted at some point and it is ‘tasteful’). The ‘Lourdes grotto’ should be torched by some iconoclast bent on doing everyone a favour.(NB I do not mean this to be taken literally.) I have often wondered just what religious message these grottos are meant to convey (as opposed to the very clear message the obscured altar conveys). Like you, one can only despair at the liturgical illiteracy, not to mention the artistic affront. Are the parishioners at Carrick so supine?
Very good pictures: keep them coming.@ake wrote:
Dropped into St.Nicolas, CARRICK ON Suir today. Once upon a time it looked like this
[ATTACH]7357[/ATTACH]
later it regressed to this
[ATTACH]7358[/ATTACH]
This year it was repainted again. What colour? You guessed it.
[ATTACH]7359[/ATTACH]
Look at the north side altar; and what’s behind the screen!;
[ATTACH]7360[/ATTACH][ATTACH]7361[/ATTACH]
Really beyond a joke at this stage. And look at the south altar;
[ATTACH]7362[/ATTACH]
what are those benches doing there?! Benches go in the nave and aisles for people to sit on them! They don’t go in the sanctuary! How can they do this? It’s like someone with absolutely zero knowledge of what a church is or what goes on in it and which different parts are for what different things, is put in charge of arranging the furniture inside, and then just goes about placing different things in this spot and that spot, wherever it seems to look pleasant!
ake, Thanks for exposing the latest abominations! This exhibit is perhaps the most damning of all the atrocities posted on this thread. (And no sanctimonious finger-wagging here, if you please johnglas, about how this thread is dedicated to architecture and we must bray on about the higher things and that this particular thread is too negative. Enough, already!) TWO Bernadettes in the Lourdes grotto!!! Add five more and we can have Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. “Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off our nut we’ll go!”
Note the shepherd who strayed from the manger scene (from the Sacred Heart storage space in Cobh Cathedral??) now making eyes at that cow? The prostrate sheep in the foreground looks utterly depressed – who wouldn’t in that menage? Don’t you think a few live chickens and a rooster would liven things up in the grotto garden?
The string attaching this monstrous screen to the toe of the marble Infant Christ is the most disgusting of all the sacrileges in St Nicholas, Carrick on Suir. Where is the episkopos (Greek) episcopus (Latin) “overseer” or “supervisor”? Even a dean could conduct a public dismantling of this shocking display.
Who in his right mind could oversee or even allow the construction of such an abomination? This does no credit to anyone even remotely associated with the promotion of religion.
@Praxiteles wrote:
I have been on before about the lack of INSTITUTIONAL maintenance at Cobh Cathedral. This leaves it in the hands of local celrgy which appears to be slide as far as competence is concerned.
Has the Church in Ireland reached its nadir? It is the clearest proof of corruption that a body cannot heal itself.
Is there no institution of higher learning where future priests can gain a basic education in art and music? What of the liberal arts? Is Ireland not a free country populated by free people?Prax: no finger-wagging, at all, at all! The Seven Dwarves did not ocur to me, but Walt Disney certainly did…!
@johnglas wrote:
Prax: no finger-wagging, at all, at all! The Seven Dwarves did not ocur to me, but Walt Disney certainly did…!
I am afraid I have somewhat lost the thread of the argument here. What have the vertically challenged to do with matters?
@Praxiteles wrote:
I am afraid I have somewhat lost the thread of the argument here. What have the vertically challenged to do with matters?
Prax! Take a good look at the pictures of St Nicholas Church, Carrick on Suir, graciously provided by ake. I draw your attention to the monstrous attempt at a Lourdes grotto – or mini-putt golf course being passed off as a devotional corner. Count the number of figures. A plaster statue of Our Lady of Lourdes stands in the niche in the grotto. So far, so good, if you like plaster statues and papier mache rockery in your north transept – kept in place by a cord tied to the toe of a vastly superior marble statue of the Divine Infant in the arms of His Blessed Mother. [See accompanying picture – Note that the marble statue of the crowned Theotokos ensconced in a marble Gothic niche is being utterly eclipsed, and, worse, employed to hold in place the gimcrack “grotto”. O tempora! O mores!
Now, go back to the picture of the Lourdes grotto. Notice TWO statues of St Bernadette dressed in peasant garb and kneeling in the direction of Our Lady of Lourdes. Note also the disproportionate size of the “wee” Bernadette statues in relationship to the much larger statue of Our Lady of Lourdes. Why only TWO Bernadettes? Why not add five more “wee” Bernadettes and bring the number of “wee” Bernadettes (the name is already a diminutive!) up to 7 – a holy number, and one that corresponds to the “setti nanni” or “seven dwarves” – as in the fairy tale popularized in 1937 by the eponyomous cartoon by Walt Disney. The display in St Nicholas’s church is so bad that even the two Bernadettes do not match each other, far less correspond in size to Our Lady of Lourdes.
Now, do you notice a shepherd in the background? That piece is from a nativity scene completely unrelated to the Lourdes imagery, motif, and statuary. It has been positioned in relationship to what appears to be a cow from a nativity set – obviously having nothing to do with Bernadette, Lourdes, or the “Lady of the Grotto.” [Perhaps it is an allusion to Jupiter and Io or Europa] Note the sheep in the foreground. He looks as though he’s seen it all. And he likely has – from that vantage!
Perhaps the rural Irish have sufficient intelligence and self-respect never to clutter their lawns with kitschy ornaments. Not so North Americans. On the contrary, some home-owners in North America “decorate” their lawns or, more likely, their trailer parks [trailers are the American equivalents of caravans] with cement or plaster figures molded in deplorable taste and painted in garish, cartoonsih colours. The more exuberant but misguided lawn-decorators sometimes adorn their lawns with “gnomes” – many of them. They aspire to excess, and quite often succeed in making their erstwhile lawns candidates for admission to such journals as “Better Gnomes and Gardens,” and suchlike. Others, with a penchant for Walt Disney cartoons arrange to dot their lawns with statues of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Assorted squirrels, racoons, and the occasional Bambi – flanked perhaps by a buck and a doe! – call to the viewer’s mind many a scene from Walt Disney cartoons. View the recent film “Enchanted” (2007) for the full effect.
This emulation of the Disney cartoons on private lawns has become a theme typical of what is regarded in wider America as “trailer trash.”Instead of ruminating over the vertically-challenged, Praxiteles ought to be considering ways to get to the bottom of this unholy mess in Carrick-on-Suir. Who is in charge of this menagery? When shall a skip be summoned to haul away the vinyl trees, faux rockery, sheep and kine, errant shepherds, and multiple “wee” Bernadettes? If the plaster statue of Our Lady of Lourdes is to remain in the church building, rather than being displayed in an outdoor grotto on the rectory grounds, then it ought to go into a position opposite the beautiful marble Marian altar on the facing side of the north transept, and not be left to compete with it. If someone insists on bypassing the tasteful marble side altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary is search of the subsidiary Lady of Lourdes, then they ought to be made to struggle in the attainment of their quest.
Who is in charge of St Nicholas, Carrick-On-Suir? Who is responsible for this unholy harlequinade? He would do well to take a leaf from Voltaire’s tome: Ecrasez l’infame!!
In the meantime, Rhabanus advises ake to keep taking plenty of photographs of these and other wretched abominations, assemble them into a huge collection, then publish a book in the vein of Michael Rose, author of Ugly as Sin. ake’s could be the catalyst for a complete sea-change for ecclesiastical architecture and decoration in Ireland and beyond!
Anyone interested in the painted decoration of Gothic cathedrals might be interested in the following link which shows some wonderful views of the interior fo the Cathedral of Ste Cecile at Albi in France:
The Building News
Oct.4th.1878New Church, Templemore, Co. Tipperary
New Catholic Church, Rathfarnham, Dublin
Architect George C. Ashlin
Thanks Paul for those two remarkable drawings from the Irish Builder. Looking at the first one, the similarities of the ground plan with Michael Hennessey’s church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Charleville, Co. Cork (1900), is most striking – excepting the tower which in Charleville was moved to the left side.
Also, the Rathfarnam ground plan, if I am reading it correctly, shows a continuous altar rail running from one side of the church to the other, below the flight of steps leading to the chancel and its flanking chapels. This, of course, was also used by Ashlin in Cobh Cathedral. Peculiarly, the great Professor O’Neill dubbed the continuous altar rail in Cobh as crude intrusion (or words to like effect) and doubted that its installation had the benefit of an architect. This in turn caused Mr. Rabbitt, the ABP inspector to ask about other examples of continuous rails in neo-Gothic churches by Pugin and Ashlin – this would have been a good example. I wonder has it survived?
BTW: on Professor O’Neill’s comments on the unsatisfactory endings to the continuoyus altar rail in Cobh when it eventually joins the walls of the North and South transepts, clearly the good professor took it that wall and rails were installed at the same time or that the rail was installed AFTER the walls. However, this displays a certain lack of an historical approach to things. A chek on the building chronology of Cobh Cathedral would have made it clear that the continuous altar rail was one of the first items installed there (c. 1892). The revetment of the interior walls only began in the later stages of the Cathedral completion which began in 1895 and were not finished, in some cases, until as late as 1912/13. So, Professor O’Neill’s “analysis” of the problem of the rail joining the walls is, historically, rumpwise. He should have addressed the question of the internal Portland stone revetment meeting the continuous altar rail – but, it was perhaps just as well that he did not do that for he might have suggested ripping the revetment off the walls of the North and South transepts to solve the “intrusive” -but in the context useful- problem.
On Tullamore church, see posting # 2554 in which James1852 posted some photographs of the recently restored stencils work on the internal walls.
The Catholic Church of the Annunciation was erected in 1878 to replace the old Chapel in Willbrook Road. Outside the door is a primitive type of font on a pedestal bearing an inscription. The appearance of the font led the archaeologist Patrick Healy to speculate that it was originally a stone bullaun and dated to a period much earlier than the penal times.
This image corresponds with the drawing so it looks like the building was largely completed as designed, at least externally. Internally looks like rails are gone.
@Praxiteles wrote:
Indeed, Cornerstone Construction, from their web page, seems to be the ones whose services are most needed in Cobh Cathedral – they seem to know all about leaking (new) roofs and decaying stonework. They did quite a bit of work in Monkstown, and in the Town Hall in Cobh, and in Castlehyde and elsewhere in Cork. So……
Lets hope they get on the job soon, was there yesterday and place looking terrible. The outside looking very shabby and the dreaded green growth worse than ever.
What does the world think of us at all…. every week literally hundreds visit St. Colmans, must be the most photographed building in County Cork…. what must they think….:o@samuel j wrote:
Lets hope they get on the job soon, was there yesterday and place looking terrible. The outside looking very shabby and the dreaded green growth worse than ever.
What does the world think of us at all…. every week literally hundreds visit St. Colmans, must be the most photographed building in County Cork…. what must they think….:oWell, you know, we are dealing with the shameless. If they were prepared the wreck the interior and plaster rubbish all over it -and dump rubbish all over it as at present- then they will not think anything of the missions admiring the green growth on the wall either.
On the topic of Pugin Wexford; I wonder is anyone familiar with the little cathedral in the fields of Rathangan, a parish down in the heartland of south Wexford not so far from Tagoat; it’s a remarkable beauty;
“It was in June 1870 when the foundation was laid for Rathangan Church. The architect was Robert Sinnott of Wexford, and the builder James Wilkinson of Enniscorthy”
It has the same basic form as Pugin’s church in Tagoat, but is slightly larger and richer, having columns of red Cork marble with golden Carlow granite capitals;
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Unfortunately, they felt the need to paint it pink at some stage;
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The sanctuary doesn’t stretch out to occupy the whole of the crossing like in Tagoat and unfortunately has lot it’s rails at the front – a shame since they’re complete otherwise.
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The altar, donated by the Patrician Brothers’ Novitiate, Tullow, installed in 1998;
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There is also some high quality stained glass, including an extraordinarily beautiful east window; you can see a large detailed photo of it here and should take a look – it’s magnificent;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/58086761@N00/2473792471/sizes/o/in/set-72157604937002804/
Couldn’t really photograph the exterior the way the sun was
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take a look here to see the great tower;
http://www.rathangan.net/index.cfm?area=content&action=contentselect&menuid=161
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