reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches
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St. Louis, Bordeaux
Detail from the window of the north transept: St. Louis leading his army into battle against the infidel.
The time draws near, once again, for the annual meeting of the Cobh Cathedral (submerged) Restoration Committee to hold is annual general meeting to prepare accounts to return to the Companies Office in Dublin. This year, hopefuly, by entering the frey a little earlier than usual, perhaps we might be able to draw this flaccid body’s attantion to its continuing decrepitude and to renew calls for its prompt resignation.
It will be recalled that the attention of the (submerged) Restoration Committee was drawn to the continuing deterioration of the fabric of St. Colman’s Cathedral over three years ago. Despite all this, the (submerged) Restoration Committee could not even manage to apply a coat of paint to the doors oft he Cathedral. Meanwhile, part of the south arcade has collapsed and, again, nothing has happened.
Attached, some pictures of the absidal chapels in Cobh Cathedral.
Lovely series of pics on the last few threads; those of the apsidal chapels are quite striking and demonstrate the quality and serenity of what we might have regarded a few years ago as quite ‘ordinary’ (because familiar). It’s only now because we have lost so much of it that we now realise their worth – that and the fact that anything ‘Victorian’ is now at least 100 years old and time adds its own patina. It’s interesting also that when excess furniture is removed (such as benches in every available space), the spatial dignity of these intimate spaces is revealed. Remove the inconsequential pot plants and fairy lights and you have them as designed.
Guidebooks in the 1960s and 70s would have dismissed this as ‘modern’ (!) – i.e. not 18th C or earlier – and I think some of that attitude persists in the non-committee you mention, except that in their case it equals ‘can be modified/removed/neglected at will’.Well, lo and behold!
Mass goers this Sunday were met at the main door of Cobh Cathedral by a notice announcing that one of the screen panels had been “guinea-pigged” to test a varnish which, it is hoped, will soon be splashed accross all the doors and screens of the Cathedral.
Authority was added to the notice by three affixed (perhaps premonitiory)signatures: Chris Southgate who, we believe is a conservation engineer; PJ Hegarty, a well known company of Cork builders; and the person who supplied the paint whose name is all but forgotten. Mention was also made of Corner Stone Construction, a local Cobh firm.
However, no mention was made of any declaration of exemption having been sought for this work from Cobh Town Council -most of whose agents can be relied upon to have been away on holidays AGAIN- and no mention of an application for Planning Permission. I expect that there will be more than a few telephone calls to the Town Hall about this “intervention” – and it seems that the Town Ccuncil people have forgotten about their oblidging oversight that allowed two hoodlums to enter the Cathedral in the dead of night an bore holes in the floor of the sanctuary!!
Re the Honan Chapel, UCC Cork
The following is the planning application which has been lodged with Cork City Council by Richard Hurley and Associates fopr what appears to be a glass box porch in front of the main entyrance to the famousw chapel.
Read all about it here:
@Praxiteles wrote:
And, I am sure that in coming up with something quite so tasteful, P. Gregory did not have the benefit of a short course at the Chicago Theological Institute!
Actually Padraig Gregory was very much the forerunner of today’s liturgical experts. He had no qualms about removing reredoes and altars and replacing them with simpler altars (although generally under a canopy, or preferably a baldachino). St Peter’s Cathedral and St. Mary’s Chapel Lane in Belfast both had substantial Victorian altars replaced by his ‘liturgical’ altars and baldachini.
He wasn’t always careful in his use of styles – his chunky side altars in St. Malachy’s in Belfast are desperately out of keeping with the rest of the Church.
That all said, his work is very tasteful. His church in Coleraine is very impressive (although the interior has lost its raison d’etre after the high altar was taken away from under the enormous stone baldachino). St Anthony’s Belfast is Coleraine’s little brother with gothic arches rather than romanesque roundels. St MacNissi’s College chapel at Garron Tower is possibly his best preserved interior, as it has even kept the original stone-coloured concrete walls, rather than having them repainted as has happened in most of his parish churches.
Having read Christine Casey’s comments on Cahill’s Celtic Cross outside the main door of St. Peter’s Church, Phibsborough, in the recently published Studies in the Gothic Revival, Four Courts Press, edited by Micahel McCarthy and Karina O’Neill, Praxiteles has begun to collect pictures of celtic revival Crosses. Praxiteles came across these two beauties in a remote country church yard last week:
@Praxiteles wrote:
Having read Christine Casey’s comments on Cahill’s Celtic Cross outside the main door of St. Peter’s Church, Phibsborough, in the recently published Studies in the Gothic Revival, Four Courts Press, edited by Micahel McCarthy and Karina O’Neill, Praxiteles has begun to collect pictures of celtic revival Crosses. Praxiteles came across these two beauties in a remote country church yard last week:
Exquisite work! The marble is so pure and fair, particularly in the case of the cross bearing the corpus.
Great photos, Prax! Many thanks!
Some more to follow of other examoples of fine Celtic Revival High Crosses from remote graveyards etc.
Some interesting arial photograhs of Cork churches:
http://www.irelandaerialphotography.com/aerial_churches/0001.html
The Eucharist for the Institution and Inductionof the Reverend Michael Thompson as incumbent of the Youghal Union
By the Right Reverend Paul Colton, Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross
in the Collegiate Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Youghal
will be on the Feast of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Monday 8th September 2008 at 8 o’clock in the evening.May I use this site to invite any who are local to attend my institution as Rector of Youghal?
Any readers or contributors will be most welcome and if local folk cannot come or do not wish to may I ask them to remember me in their prayers and at mass?Orate ad invincem
Michael Thompson
St. Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, Co. Cork
Praxiteles came across these rather interesting pictires of the ceiling recently.
St. Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, Co. Cork
Some shots of the strapwork on the main doors which is modelled on that of the south door of Notre Dame de Paris.
@Praxiteles wrote:
St. Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, Co. Cork
Some shots of the strapwork on the main doors which is modelled on that of the south door of Notre Dame de Paris.
It looks about as old as Notre Dame de Paris, too! Time for some close application of varnish and cleansers.
By the bye, has anyone seen the recently released remake of Brideshead Revisited? Lovers of architecture doubtless would be impressed with a few shots of Castle Howard as well as Oxford and Venice. The Grenada television series, however, showed all of these to better advantage. Too bad the new film got everything else wrong, particularly the screenplay. In fact, the film could be retitled Hooper’s Brideshead Revisited: The Ultimate Revenge, then relegated to oblivion.
Rhabanus is still awaiting a dramatic presentation (television or motion picture) on the life and work of AWN Pugin.
A film called ‘The Eclipse” is about to begin shooting in Cobh, written/directed by Conor McPherson…. Cobh, Fota and in particular St Colmans will be featured… hope someone puts a drop of varnish and hammerite on the doors before then
@samuel j wrote:
A film called ‘The Eclipse” is about to begin shooting in Cobh, written/directed by Conor McPherson…. Cobh, Fota and in particular St Colmans will be featured… hope someone puts a drop of varnish and hammerite on the doors before then
Is this a film about the HACK, as the title suggests? Could be a real melodrama! Or is it a horror film? Perhaps an Irish western along the lines of High Noon ….
Rhabanus hopes that the FOSCC will make at least a cameo appearance. He knows who will be wearing the white hats and who will sport the black hats in this movie!
Some film companies pay to have the site cleaned up when they film in a given building. This may be what the cathedral authorities have been waiting for … How’s that for a deus ex machina? Deus ex RTE?
@Rhabanus wrote:
Is this a film about the HACK, as the title suggests? Could be a real melodrama! Or is it a horror film? Perhaps an Irish western along the lines of High Noon ….
Rhabanus hopes that the FOSCC will make at least a cameo appearance. He knows who will be wearing the white hats and who will sport the black hats in this movie!
Some film companies pay to have the site cleaned up when they film in a given building. This may be what the cathedral authorities have been waiting for … How’s that for a deus ex machina? Deus ex RTE?
Deus ex RTE !!!!!
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