reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches

This, Praxiteles suspects, post dates the 1985 gutting and probably reflects the awful mess splashed on the west wall of St Mary’s Oratory in nearby Maynooth College – some, I suppose, would regard this as an example of “cross cultural pollination”.

Drogheda church to get medieval font back

A medieval baptismal font that was removed from a church in Drogheda when it was demolished and ended up as a museum exhibit, is to return to use in one of the town’s churches.
Fr Denis Nulty, who is parish priest of St Mary’s parish, welcomed the offer of the font that will now be re-located at the altar of his church and revert to its original function.

After St John’s Medieval Church was knocked down, the ornate font was moved temporarily to St Mary’s Church but was bought subsequently by a member of the Old Drogheda Society.

The new owner, Ms Moira Corcoran, who purchased the artefact in the 1980s, ultimately decided to donate it to the Millmount Museum after it was established.

The museum regarded the acquisition as one of its best exhibits and displayed it prominently in the reception area but now has agreed to return the historic font to St Mary’s.

The font is made from sandstone and marble and has eight carved panels depicting Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection and the seven sacraments.

The lesser known Hurley.

John Pine Hurley architect.3 Victoria Terrace, Summerhill, Cork, 1856.

Architect, of Cork. John Pine (or Pyne) Hurley was active as an architect in Cork from the 1850s or earlier until the 1870s. He is probably the J. Hurley, architect, of Cork, who exhibited ‘architectural elevations’ and a ‘design of town hall, Cork’, at the National Exhibition of the Arts, Manufactures & Products, Cork, in 1852. His first major commission came in the spring of 1856 when Bishop Timothy Murphy appointed him architect for the new St Colman’s College, Fermoy. He is presumably the John Hurley who designed improvements to the chapel of St Mary’s Convent, Cobh, in 1858 and who was placed first in the competition for designing the church of SS. Peter & Paul, Cork, the following year, although the church was actually executed to designs by EDWARD WELBY PUGIN. In 1867 he designed the new Catholic church and convent schools at Kanturk, Co. Cork. He is listed as an architect in the Cork Mercantile Directory for 1863.

According to Forde, nothing is known of Hurley in Cork after the mid 1870s, and he is believed to have emigrated. Possibly he moved to Dublin first. A John Pim Hurley appears in the list of architects in the classified section of Thom’s Dublin Directory for the years 1873 and 1874, with an address at 202 Great Brunswick Street, Dublin. This had been the address of CHARLES GEOGHEGAN until 1871, when Geoghegan moved to 205 Great Brunswick Street. However no John Pim Hurley is named at this address in the street directory section of the Post Office Directory for 1874. In the Post Office Directory for 1875, however, a John J. Hurley, architect, is to be found at 18 Clare Street.

Since the Jubilee Year major refurbishment of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Kanturk, has been implemented. The completion of the work was marked by a liturgical celebration at 12.00 noon on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th 2007. The celebration on December 8th included the consecration by Bishop Magee of a new Fixed Altar, designed and crafted by Ken Thompson in Portugese Limestone. An Ambo and Chair in the same material have also been introduced.
The church has quite an extensive volume of Stained Glass Windows, all of which were completely refurbished prior to the implementation of the requirements of Planning Act 2000.
The church was placed on the Register of Protected Structures, consequently, through Cloyne HCAC we had to engage with the Heritage Unit of the Planning Department of Cork County Council since the implementation of the Planning Act 2000, and I am happy to say that all works carried out have been done by ‘Declaration’.
Besides the introduction of a new Altar, Ambo and Chair, the works include:
· New Electrical Installation.
· New Heating Installation, incorporating extensive insulation of the roof for energy conservation.
· Redecoration throughout.
· Refurbishment of Church Grounds, incorporating extra car parking spaces.
This is the second major makeover of the church since it was established in 1867. The previous one took place in 1912. The cost of the present programme is almost 2m.

Church of the Immaculate Conception, Kanturk, Co. Cork

There also remains here the unsettled question of the removal of the gates from the altar rail. These are all by McGlouglin’s of Dublin and mysteriously disappeared from the rail during the recent “renovations”. The Conservation Officer claims, at least to some people, that their removal was not authorised.

As for a a declaration of the works mentioned above, a search of Cork County Council planning website fails to provide the usual information concerning such declarations.

It is indeed useful that Apelles has re-opened this case.

More news from the Pugin Foundation in Tasmania:

8 August 2010. Environs reinstatement at Colebrook.

Further reinstatement of the historic environs of St Patrick’s, Colebrook, has been accomplished with the planting of an additional nine trees within the churchyard. These trees are of the same type and in the same locations as those visible in early 1890s photographs of the church. They include poplars, pencil pines, a cork oak, an English elm and a cedar of Lebanon. All trees have been donated by our Friends of Pugin. The plantings will not reinstate the entire 1890s tree complement because of the need to preserve views of the church from Colebrook village. A pear and two apple trees were already planted in their original locations two years ago.

22 August 2010. Colebrook conservation works re-started.

A start has been made on the next phase of the conservation works at St Patrick’s, Colebrook. The carpet in the nave and aisles is being removed and the original wooden floor carefully remediated. This includes the painstaking removal of glue which had been used to stick the carpet down in the 1970s. After cleaning, the floor will be waxed and carpet runners installed between the west door and the rood screen, and between the north porch door and the central aisle. The chancel floor was similarly remediated several years ago.

To Praxiteles’ eye there is nothing “typical” about this picture. It is quite spectacular and splendidly positioned.

@apelles wrote:

I think what they mean by “typical” is that it was more commonplace back then to have such paintings adorning the sanctuary walls. . And I agree that it is both spectacular and splendidly positioned. .Their very lucky in Kilcullen to have this piece still intact after 110 years.
What I wasn’t so aware of is how “They brought over Italian craftsmen to decorate the churches because the Irish traditions and skills had all disappeared over 600 years of occupation” Which seems strange when you think of the amount of Irish artists whose names keep cropping up on this thread who were well known decorators from this period. . Namely Hodkinsons of Limerick, Earlys, The Craftworkers & the other chap who done Maynooth whose name I can’t remember.

– Hodkinson’s set up originally in Cork having came from England.
– Earlys came from England to open up shop in Dublin with Powells from Birmingham
– Pearse came from England to set up in Dublin.
– Pain Bros from England
– Pietro Turnerelli born in Belfast of Italian father.
– A. W. N. Pugin enough said

– JJ McCarthy was Milesian!

@apelles wrote:

Ok Yep. .Point taken. . But all of the names you’ve quoted were well established here by 1900 when Buccini was brought here to do this. Was it Drogheda were you mentioned before that a company from Belgian was brought over to decorate a church?

Yes, they were finishing the apse wall in St. Peter’s when the war broke out in 1914.

Then, take Brendan grimes book on Byrne and you will have a glimpse of he regularity with which statuary was imppored from Italy – often from very accomplished masters.

The Franciscan Church Limerick

This is a picture of the church interior giving an idea of the object of recent demolition:

WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL CENTENARY EXHIBITION

by Fr. Anthony Symondson, SJ

Westminster Cathedral has accumulated many treasures that chart the development of English Catholic applied art for the last 100 years and some of the best are displayed in an exhibition commemorating the centenary of the cathedral’s consecration in 1910. The show is not confined to c20 work because, like all great churches, the sacristy contains a cumulative collection that goes back to the year of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 and from there, via recusancy, to Pre-Reformation times. The objects present a unique record of the cathedral’s liturgical history.

Bentley’s magnificent, newly-restored model of the cathedral, made of Kauri pine to a 1:48 scale, forms an appetising prelude to what follows. In company with Wren’s for St Paul’s and Lutyens’s for Liverpool, it counts among the three best surviving architectural models in the country and provides an anchor for all that follows. It also explains the high quality of plate specially commissioned for the cathedral and the inspiration the building provided for the makers. The architectural impact of Bentley’s work at Westminster affected many branches of the applied arts, of which silver was conspicuous.

The opening in 1903 and consecration seven years later coincided with one of the most creative periods of the late Arts & Crafts Movement. The leading silversmiths of the period were Omar Ramsden, Alwyn Carr and Harold Stabler, all of whom continued working for the first half of the c20. There was a distinct quality about their design that combined a free interpretation of the historic styles, Gothic and Renaissance, while narrowly avoiding the sinuous attenuations of Art Nouveau.

Prominent among Ramsden and Carr’s work is the great Westminster monstrance, made in 1907, which forms a complement to their crucifix and candlesticks on the high altar. They engraved their work Omar Ramsden et Alwyn Carr me fecerunt (Omar Ramsden and Alwyn Carr made me) but that is not quite true. Carr was a working silversmith but Ramsden was a designer who came to employ a staff of twenty to actually execute his work. Their partnership of twenty years not only produced church but domestic silver, characterized by planished surfaces and embossed relief. It has an immediately recognizable character of its own and stylistically defined the taste of the period as no other. Of equal interest is the ‘Everyday Crown’ designed by Ramsden for the processional statue of Our Lady in 1929. This was sold by Cardinal Heenan in 1969 to raise funds for the relief of poverty but happily has found its way back to the cathedral. I remember the furore at the time of its disposal and its return comes as a welcome surprise.

Harold Stabler was a Classical rather than Gothic designer and re-established the Poole Pottery where his work moved into Art-Deco. His noble mace mounted on an ebony stem for the Guild of the Blessed Sacrament, made in 1911, is one of the finest pieces of silver of its time. He clearly had the scale of the cathedral in mind when he made it because it is meant to be read at a distance and be seen carried ceremonially in the cathedral’s shadowy spaces. These designers were responsible for most of the ceremonial plate that is used daily in the cathedral and has become inextricably associated with it.

The greater part of the exhibition consists of altar vessels and episcopal regalia, dating from the late Middle Ages to the present time. Much of it has associational interest, some of which is surprising. There is a French chalice and ciborium give to Cardinal Manning at the conclusion of the First Vatican Council in 1871; the altar plate of Cardinal Howard, Bishop of Frascati, (incongruously scattered between cases rather than shown together); a chalice presented by King Alfonso XIII of Spain in 1905, another by Pope Leo XIII in 1896 in anticipation of the new cathedral; and an exquisite c15 Italian crucifix of copper-gilt, given by Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough. Glittering sombrely is the jewelled morse, set with sixty-one amethysts, given by Mrs Crawford in 1895, which made such an impact at Archbishop Nichols’s enthronement last year. There is a case of reliquaries.

Among the vestments is part of Pugin’s High Mass set of cloth of gold, made for Cardinal Wiseman and worn at the consecration of St George’s Cathedral, Southwark, in 1848. These comprise a precious mitre, maniple, burse and gloves. The last Archbishop of Westminster to wear the mitre was Cardinal Hume, presumably because it fitted. Other vestments are fine Latin ones, embroidered overall in arabesque patterns. But why are Cardinal Manning’s cope (made of a delicious Neapolitan violet silk) and Cardinal Howard’s chasuble displayed facing the visitor, instead of being shown back to front? These were how they were designed to be seen and their impact as works of art is lost with the best embroidery rendered invisible. The reason is, I suspect, the result of Mass being celebrated versus populum and I hope they will be redisplayed properly.

Well-designed, lit and presented by Design Map, the exhibition has enormous visual impact that is only spoilt by labels displayed at floor level which make them unreadable for the majority, and the unsuitably-shown vestments. Both could be rectified by the provision of a hand-list and an adjustment. You will see treasures that date from the days when morning Masses were celebrated daily in relays in the cathedral’s chapels and turned Westminster Cathedral into a spiritual power station. I recommend this exhibition unreservedly to all who are drawn to beauty, history and England’s Catholic patrimony. [originally published in the Catholic Herald]