reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches

@Paul Clerkin wrote:

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.

I’ve been in this many times – it’s in a spectacular setting surrounded by huge pines- it’s lovely.

Beautiful design for Tipperary there – did it ever come to fruition? The spire looks very ambitious for such a relatively modest church.

One of the better designed churches of the early 20th century that largely managed to escape the machine-cut granite-clad barn template of later years is the Church of St. Oliver Plunkett in Blackrock Co. Louth, built c. 1918-1922. It’s a delightful, if at times tried and tested, exercise in Hiberno-Romanesque, designed by Ralph Byrne. It is without question one of his more successful works, if not in fact his most accomplished in terms of completeness of form and execution. Blackrock was and is a wealthy parish – its inhabitants of the 1910s clearly wanted that forcefully expressed.

Unlike most churches of the time that merely used such a motif in pinnacles or as a token gesture for a small bellfry, ambitiously Byrne designed the entire bell tower to mimic a round tower. What a statement it makes: as political as it is religious.

The perfect site was chosen for the church, on the edge of the village sited on high ground looking out to sea towards the Mourne Mountains.

It is built of rubble-faced limestone with finely crafted granite dressings.

The endearing almost freestanding sacristy has a faintly Arts and Crafts influence to it – alas riddled with PVC from the 1980s. Presumably it had one-over-one timber sash windows or leaded iron casements before this.

Recent crass additions including loudspeakers for a synthetic bell and radio antenna have not improved matters on its otherwise fantasy skyline.

Beautiful greeny-grey slates adorn the roof, while its crisp and elegant rainwater goods have thankfully been painted recently for the first time in over 20 years.

An octagonal baptistery balances the opposing bell tower to the left of the main facade.

The entrance front with east window is at once forceful and dramatic, executed entirely in hard cut granite, appropriate in the harsh marine setting.

And the entrance below.

(A bird was caught up in the top window when I was there, desperately trying to get out with much noise)

All original entrance doors and joinery survives to the rear underneath the gallery, although the end bays were sadly plugged with more doors to create additional lobbies in the 1960s.

The seating which is in excellent condition uses the same timber.

One of the pair of confession boxes in the building.

Vivid Stations of the Cross.

These were all of stained timber until they were painted over in the 1990s…

The altar and chancel is, or rather was, the real delight of this church. Beautifully reticent, free-flowing Edwardian-like mosaics cover the chancel wall, with ceramic corner tiling to window reveals.

Alas there are growing damp problems, and 1960s radiators scar much of the beautiful work.

Thanks Graham for a very interesting study of this church -which is very fine especially in its decoration and fittings.

Fortunately, most of its is still more or less intact. The losses can be made up easily enoughn but the disappearance of the altar rail and, apparently, of the mensa from both side altars is most unfortunate.

I am sure that were you scrape away that red colour on the vault of the sanctuary you would probably find some nice stencil work carrying the decorative work of the walls up into the ceiling thereby eliminating the present disjointed look of the decorated walls and the harsh red ceiling. A better solution should be found tot he heating of the sanctuary than those terrible radiators which obscure the patterns of the ,moasic.

A bit more imagination might have helped in the rebuilding of the organ so as not to obscure the west window.

The arch in the main facade is interesting and here, as in JJ MCCarthy’s shortened versions (Maynooth, Monaghan, St. Saviours), it has been equipped with a gallery without the Saints. The origin of the fukll arch running from ground to attic would be useful to identify. AWN Pugin used it in Barntown, Co. Wexford. EW Pugin used it in his principal churches: Barton, Dadizell in Belgium, and Cobh. It has bee suggested that the medieval prototype for this is Lincoln Minster or Peterborough Cathedral. However, curiously, this feature also occurs in earlier Byzantine architecture, a notable example being the Church of Hagios Loukas on the foothills of Mount Hellikon near Thebes in Greece built in the early 11th century.

http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Greece/Central_Greece/Viotia/Osios_Loukas/page2.htm

And here is a Western example, Tewkesbury Abbey in Gloustershire:

Lincoln Cathedral

Hi – Great thread – I was hoping that one of viewers maight throw some light on a question that has been tasking a few like minds in Galway. With regard to the keystone on the top of a 16th, 17th century castle, tower house or church doorway – why is the right side of the keystone longer than the left. It is always the right side which is longer as you walk in.

If anyone could assist us in this – it would be appreciated.

Thanks

A W N Pugin’s St. Alphonsus, Barntown, Co. Wexford

Here the arch is use to conceale two butresses:

@GrahamH wrote:

One of the better designed churches of the early 20th century that largely managed to escape the machine-cut granite-clad barn template of later years is the Church of St. Oliver Plunkett in Blackrock Co. Louth, built c. 1918-1922. It’s a delightful, if at times tried and tested, exercise in Hiberno-Romanesque, designed by Ralph Byrne. It is without question one of his more successful works, if not in fact his most accomplished in terms of completeness of form and execution. Blackrock was and is a wealthy parish – its inhabitants of the 1910s clearly wanted that forcefully expressed.

Thanks for the tour of a beauitful Irish Romanesque building. I especially enjoyed seeing the stained glass in the Early Irish style, complete with La Tene spirals and the more common interlace. I find this to be quite rare, to find these motifs in glass – at least in this part of the country. Anyone know of anyone other buildings with this kind of Irish glass?

The only one I’ve come across in the South East to date is in Adamstown, here however the figures are simply your typical Victorian work as indeed they are in Blackrock too ( here’s a pic http://www.flickr.com/photos/58086761@N00/2477362535/sizes/l/). What I would like to see would be glass treating the figural scenes in the genuine medieval Irish style – so figures composed as in the Book of Kells for example, or like the figurative High Cross sculptures. Does it exist?

The closest thing to it I’ve seen is in Cahir, just the signs of the Evangelists (pic here – http://www.flickr.com/photos/58086761@N00/2442212769/sizes/l/in/set-72157603314818657/)

Can anyone name any other examples?

ps the romanesque confessionals is Blackrock are wonderful

In relation to the trumphal arches on the west facades of Lincoln Cathedral and of Cobh Cathedral,it is interesting to note that both have diamond headed stone-work in the attic above the arch.