reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches

@Paul Clerkin wrote:

Interesting little anecdote

Eamonn told me of a commission he had done some years back for Bishop Magee of Cloyne. A Christ the King figure in bronze to sit atop the cathedral. After the sculpture was complete, cast and patinated, the bishop, just back from Milan, said he had to have the figure gilded (like the one above Milan cathedral). Eamonn explained this would not be possible or practical or inexpensive. In fact, it would cost as much again as the original work. The bishop was adamant. Eamonn went through the procedure that would be necessary involved in gilding the bronze figure. He would have to plate it with nickel, then apply gold leaf; the Irish climate would destroy the gilding in a relatively short time and it would turn black. The bishop still insisted.

The statue was installed, by helicopter. Soon the gold leaf began to peel – and the corroding nickel turned black.

The Vicar General ( a man like the bishop, recently in the news on other matters) demanded a meeting. He explained that he and his boss were unhappy – and that it was likely the matter would end up in litigation.

“Very well, then,” said Eamonn. “My defence is already prepared. I will tell the court that the changes in the statue are God’s judgment on what has been happening in the diocese and, only when these wrongs have been remedied, a miracle would return the statue to pristine gold, showing God’s favour.” He heard no more from the bishop or his minions.

The statue remains black.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/1024/1224306388630.html

Another example of just how disastrous the Magee/O’Callaghan/Reidy “restoration” of Cobh Cathedral actually was. If anything the efforts of the “restorers” accelerated the natural decay of the Cathedral fabric by about two centuries. It was not for nothing that all of these characters have received the Will Dowsing prize – and without the expense of a public enquiry!

And here we ahve some more:

15 Aug 2007 07:10

Continuing our amble through the meanderings of Denis O’Callaghan’s account of the Cobh Cathedral debacle, as published in his groundbreaking work Hand to Plough, this morning’s first offering has the following to say:

“I was privilege to have been entrusted with the role of charing the SPECIALIST group which would recommend an architect for the work {of wrecking the interior of Cobh Cathedral}.”.

What we would all like to know is what specialization in architecture does Denis O’Callaghan have – apart form the usual bit of guffing that he goes on with? We certainly know that he has no LITURGICAL specialization. As far as ART is concerend, he has no qualification whatsoever.

This leaves us witrh the prospect of a SPECIALIST group chaired by someone UNSPECIALIZED chairing it. Is its any wonder that everything came to grief.

In the wake of a disaster of these proportions, surely those responsible for the recommendation, including O’C himself, should resign from all diocesan advice groups in the diocese of Cloyne? Obviously, the shipwrecked the bishop by foisting the Cobh disaster on him.

15 Aug 2007 13:09

Some further musings from Denis O’Callaghan and the Cobh Cahedral debacle:

“Eventually the design came before An Bord Pleanala for planning permission”.

The use of the word EVENTUALLY in this sentence covers a multitude of unsavoury factors that our author would rather pass over in the deepest silence. As we all know, planning permission is not granted by An Bord Pleanala. Planning Permission is granted by the Local Autority – in this case a very tame and over-coperative Cobh Urban District Council.

The plans to wreck Cobh Cathedral came to ABP because the planning permission so willingly supplied by Cobh Urban District Council was challenged (successfully) by all the major conservation groups in the country and by the Friends of St. Colman’s Cathedral – the group that formally requested an Oral Hearing from ABP. It is important to keep the record straight. DO’C just simply cannot recreate a coco version of it.

The use of the word EVENTUALLY also meant that DOC did not have to dwell for too long on the sham “consultation process” that took place AFTER the planning application had been lodged. It also allowed him to skip the bit about a solemn promise made by bishop McGhee to return to the people of Cobh BEFORE doing anything with the Cathedral. It also meant that he need not have to make mention of the lies told in writing to the FOSCC – which were subsequently unmasked at the Oral Heraing.

Using the word EVENTUALLY also meant that DOC did not have to mention anything of bishop McGhee’s IMAGINATION that he had APPROVAL from Rome for his plans when, in reality it transpired at the Oral Hearing that he had a letter that barely mentioned the subject and certainly could not be construed as an approval.

Using the word EVENTUALLY also meant that he did not have to mention anything about the dirty tricks unleashed by Jim Killeen on the FOSCC and his attempts to portray them as unlawfully collecting money and of his attempt to to have the police block the FOSCC from collecting funds to pay their legal expenses.

So, there is indeed a lot in a word!

Anyone who has been reading this site over the past five years will not be unfamiliar with the tactics applied in other areas by the terrible duo nor surprised with the results !!

The department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht has just made a further addition to its “advice series” entitled The Conservation of Places of Worship.

The full text may be viewed on line at this link:

http://www.ahg.gov.ie/en/Publications/HeritagePublications/BuiltHeritagePolicyPublications/The%20Conservation%20of%20Places%20of%20Worship%20(2011).pdf

Helpfully. it indicates the following:

Editor: Nessa Roche
Series Editor: Jacqui Donnelly
Design: Bennis Design
Cover image by Patrick Donald

Text by: Howley Hayes Architects

Contributors: David Lawrence, Lisa Edden and Edith Blennerhassett
All images are by the authors or DoAHG except where otherwise stated

The book consists of an Introduction, 10 chapters and a Glossary.

Can anyone tell me if the Planning and development Act makes any mention of “consensus” when speaking about protected structures? Or, are with dealing here with another adjunct to the act that will require a trip to the High Court for a quashing?

Also, I find the author’s reliance on Historic Churches Advisory Committees, aka HACKS, a trifle naive. In the case of the diocese of Cloyne, and especially with regard to the late lamented bishop’s personal desire to wreck the interior of Cobh Cathedral, from an enlightened conservation perspective, the Cloyne HACK was about as affective as the Cloyne Child Protection procedures – with the one difference that there was no external supervisory body to expose the HACK’s crass cronyism and stupidity.

It came as news to Praxiteles that “reordering is ongonig” and that it might be devisive !

Building today in a style that
was popular a hundred or more years ago may detract
from the historic fabric and create confusion in the
perception of both parts of the building.

Praxiteles is just wondering what the implications of that beauty might have been had it been uttered in Italy around 1440-1550? How would it have left Brunelleschi, Bramante, Donatello, Michelozzo, Alberti, Serlio, Palladio, Michelangelo, Raphael….. ?

Now, the advice document we are looking at provides a photograph of the methodist Church in Killarnery with a ghastly awful thing build alongside it by a company called Mott MacDonald Ireland. Unfortunately, they are not advertising this particular outing on their own webpage. They do tell us however that they are putting down a new sewerage syatem for Cork City with lots of pipes out into Cork Harbour. Their site also tells us that they were responsible for the quondam Sheraton Hotel on Fota Island. they even have a photograph:

Praxiteles wonders whether this might not be a more appropriate example of “Contrasting
but respectful addition” to Fota House; and one “more visually and aesthetically successful” for being able to be seen over the mature trees of the Fota estate from about five mile away?

And this, by the way is what Mott MacDonald planked up against the Honan Chapel in UCC

Another example of (what was it?): “Contrasting
but respectful additions to the ensemble are often
more visually and aesthetically successful”

coupled with:

“Careful consideration of the palette of materials, the scale and
the detailed design can ensure that the new work
complements the original while reflecting the values
of the present time”.

Just think of the careful consideration given to this when contrasting it (respectfully) with the Honan Chapel !!

To return to our current text:

The department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht has just made a further addition to its “advice series” entitled The Conservation of Places of Worship.

The full text may be viewed on line at this link:

http://www.ahg.gov.ie/en/Publications/H … ip%20(2011).pdf

Helpfully. it indicates the following:

Editor: Nessa Roche
Series Editor: Jacqui Donnelly
Design: Bennis Design
Cover image by Patrick Donald

Text by: Howley Hayes Architects

Contributors: David Lawrence, Lisa Edden and Edith Blennerhassett
All images are by the authors or DoAHG except where otherwise stated

The book consists of an Introduction, 10 chapters and a Glossary.Praxiteles
Old Master

Praxiteles thinks that page 9 of our book of the week must be the real pits as far as accuracy is concerned. It states the following:

“In the Roman Catholic Church,
early nineteenthcentury churches were mostly designed in either the
Neoclassical or the Gothic Revival styles, architects such
as John B Keane and Patrick Byrne working
competently in both idioms, although the churches
and cathedrals of Dominick Madden and William
Deane Butler were ubiquitously Gothic. From the 1830s
acclaimed architects of the High Victorian Gothic
Revival were employed to build churches throughout
Ireland, facilitating ecclesiological principles, as
liturgical emphasis shifted from the word to the
sacraments.

The earliest of these was A W N Pugin,
who designed Killarney and Enniscorthy cathedrals,
together with several fine churches in County Wexford.
In the 1860s his son, Edward Welby Pugin built up a
considerable, if short-lived Irish practice, run by his
partner George Coppinger Ashlin. This practice was
continued by Ashlin alone after 1869, and in
partnership with Thomas A Coleman after 1903. Their
main rival was James Joseph McCarthy, who designed
the chapel at Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth and the
cathedrals at Thurles (unusually Romanesque in style)
and Monaghan, as well as completing that at Armagh.
Leading figures of the late-nineteenth century included
William Hague and William H Byrne, the latter joined by
his son Ralph in partnership in 1902″.

Firstly, forgive Praxiteles for mentioning it, but did not the Princess Alexandrina Victoria succeed to the throne on 20 June 1836? So, how do we come to have “the High Victorian Gothic revival” in the 1830s? Are we to take it that the High Victorian Gothic Revival was reached within three and half years of Queen Victoria’s accession? That must surely be a record on the scale of Darwinian evolutionism! At least in Ireland, the High Victorian Gothic Revival was, for the most part, inspired by French Gothic prototypes. Praxiteles is at a loss to think up of a significant gothic revival Catholic church built in the 1830s and inspired by French examples – indeed St Nicolas in Nantes was only built in 1844. Praxiteles is inclined to think that the HVGR took off in Ireland in the 1850s -nearing on twent years into the reign. One could easily mention in this context Sts Peter and Paul’s in Cork, Cobh Cathedral, Clonakilty and Sts John and Augustine in Dublin.

Secondly, the quotation above from page 9 contains this most extraordinary statement: “In the Roman Catholic Church….From the 1830s acclaimed architects of the High Victorian Gothic Revival were employed to build churches throughout Ireland, facilitating ecclesiological principles, as liturgical emphasis shifted from the word to the sacraments.” Is this to be read to mean that at some stage in its history prior to the 1830s the worship of the Catholic Church overemphasised the word to the detriment of the sacraments? If so, then whoever wrote it does not have a clue about Catholic liturgy, little or nothing about Catholic ecclesiastical history and certainly nothing about Catholic Sacramental theology. If the above statement is to be read as such, then it raises even further questions about the writer’s knowledge and understanding of the texts of the Second Vatican Council – to which no explicit reference is made. If the statement about 1830s prolifiration of emphasis on sacraments is to be taken literally, then what are we to make of Sacrosanctum Concilium’s insistence on the expanded use of Scripture in the liturgy in 1963? The rediscovery of the importance of sacrament is an exclusively Protestant phenomenon and linked to the tractarian movement in Oxford and to John Henry Newman, et al. Praxiteles has no evidence to suggest that Newman, as far as liturgy is concerned, became a Catholic for any other reason than having found extant in the Catholic Church what had been lost at the reformation in the Anglican church. There is no evidence at all to suggest that he began a campaign to emphasise sacrament over word in teh Catholic Church. Please, put an end to this fuzzy thinking and have a bit of common sense.

“These documents are designed to sooth, not aggravate, you’re not cooperating Praxiteles, you are an obstacle to consensus.”

Terrible sorry, Gunter, but consensus with the isonoclasts is simply not possible and no amount of soothing is going change that. And, as mentioned previoiusly, the concensus process might not stand up very well in a court of law in relation to the Planning and Development Act 2000 as a correct application of the Act. As far as Praxiteles can see, there is no mention of it in the Act. And, since this come from the Department of what-ever-it-is-now, we may well be facing another example of an exemption not contained in the Act- as the Deptartment insisted previously in its guidelines.

Then, of course, we had the Dept’s example of “consensus” in relation to Cobh Cathedral when Freddy O’Dwyre put forward an even more ridiculous “final solution”.

“It is an unwritten rule in architectural discourse that the term ‘style’ is only used when referring to the distant past. To use the term in a near present context [as planning officials sometimes cause mirth by doing] is to grievously diminish the profundity of what we do.”

In this case, as far as Ireland is concerned, we will have precious little to talk about. Just how far back is the remote past?

“Praxiteles, the drafting of architectural guidelines has become so anodyne in recent times that if you hadn’t highlighted those mildly opinionated passages, we could have snored gently through the whole thing.”

This is perfectly true except that they tend to be quoted in applications such as that made for the destruction of Cobh Cathedral. If Praxiteles is not mistaken, it would appear that the horrible spectre of Paddy Jones from the irish Liturgical Centre was cast over the launch of this opuscule. Hardly helpful that either.

Praxiteles has more to say about this booklet and can easily afford a few more examples of its condescending platitudes. Really, does the Dept. not have guidelines about sustainable forests and criteria to determine what should or should not be published before felling them?