reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches

Here is some further background.

http://www.thearttribune.com/Threat-of-demolition-for-the.html

I have to say, the story here differes very little from what happened to teh Sacred Heart Church in Limerick which was destined fro a similar dangerous condtion scenario had it been left vacant much longer. It is all the more ironic that having survived the bombings during the war that this should happen.

Let me investigate the political colouration of the municipality of Abbéville and I shall revert. However, do not for a moment think that the same would not happen in Ireland – it already has in hundreds of smaller scale instances.

St Jacques looks remarkably like St Nicholas in Nantes, teh first neo-gothic church built in France and showing a design scheme remarkably like JJ McCarthy’s churches with tower at the wet end and entrance in it.

From the level of force used in the demolition of the church, it would not appear to have been in such a state of disrepair as to suggest the danger of an immeidate collapse.

Here is St. Nicholas in Nantes (1841) which seems to have undergone a fairly thorough restoration in the last few years:

The architect is Jean-Baptiste Lassus and the prototype is Saint-Martin des Bois near Beauvais, ironically not too far distant from Abeville: http://tchorski.morkitu.org/10/st-martin-aux-bois-01.htm

Armagh Cathedral

Don’t believe these have been posted before – the lady chapel and side altars pre 1982. [attachment=0:2lkcjj1o]armagh lady chapel.jpg[/attachment:2lkcjj1o][attachment=1:2lkcjj1o]armagh side altars.jpg[/attachment:2lkcjj1o]

@gunter wrote:

What do the gentlemen of this thread know of the work of a Dublin stained glass artist called John Casey, who sometimes traded as J & D Casey, of Moore Street and later Marlborough Street, 1830s to 1870s?

Not a lot out there Gunter, you’ve probably already seen this http://www.dia.ie/architects/view/429#tab_works

And he gets a little mention on this.

Dowe take it that we are in the domains of the Spanish monarquia?

My God, you’re good!

I was just going to lay out some red herring trails, when you jumped straight in there with the identification. Inglesia de Nuestra Senora de la Pena Francia [Our Lady of the Rock of France], Puerto de la Cruz on the northern coast of Tenerife. Apparently the church is located quite close to a Molly Malone pub for those seeking the authentic Irish experience on their holidays in the Canaries.

You will, however, not be able to tell me what the Dutch Billy connection is, surely?

The aforesaid Bernardo Walsh

Other Irish families working out of Jerez de la frontiera Southern Spain in the 17 th century were the Goughs from Dublin and the Morgans. A scion of both families was Fra Francisco Gough y Fletcher Morgan Cabeza de Vaca – the great patron of Bartolomeo Esteban Murillo !!

Have you seen this:

SNIPPET: Irish emigrants of the late 17th century , in particular, established strong links between Ireland and the Canaries Many Irish Catholic merchant families with business connections with Spain fled from Ireland after the Cromwellian and Williamite confiscations and plantations. Their commerical links with Spain through the wine trade led them to the Canaries where they began to build new lives and fortunes in Tenerife and Gran Canaria.

The names of Irish emigrants to the Canaries in historical records include: Walsh (which became Valois), Murphy, Meade, Brooke (which became Arroyo), O’Shanahan, Callaghan (which changed to Cologan), Madden (now Madan), Fitzgerald, Commyns, Power, Creagh, White (now Blanco), Hanty, Key Wadding, Roche, O’Shea, Russell, Forrestal, Lynch, O’Daly, MacGee and many others. The Cologan family is still prospering in Puerto de la Cruz. One of them became the Marquis de la Candia and his fine house and private chapel can be seen in the La Paz district of the city. There are streets in Santa Cruz, the capital of Tenerife, and in Puerto de la Cruz named after Leopoldo O’Donnell, first Duke of Tetuan, Jose Murphy, Cologan, Valois and Blanco.

The great houses of some of these emigre families are still to be seen in Tenerife, like the Hotel Marquesa in Puerto de la Cruz which was the palatial home of Bernardo Walsh from Waterford, or the old Royal Custom House overlooking the little harbour of Puerto de la Cruz which was once the residence of the Commyns family. The tomb of Bernardo Walsh and his wife, Francisca Fitzgerald (of another Waterford family) is in a side chapel dedicated to St. Patrick in the church of Nuestra Senore Pena de Francia in Puerto de la Cruz and a huge painting of St. Patrick, donated by Bernardo to the church, is displayed there every St. Patrick’s Day.

Families such as these brought with them to Tenerife such customs as the veneration of Patrick and also St. Fiacre, the local patron saint of gardeners, who is depicted in paintings in many houses in Tenerife. The tradition of lighting bonfires on 22 June, the eve of the feast of St. John was alive in Tenerife as in Ireland until recently.

— Excerpt, “Irish Roots” magazines 1997 #1

@Praxiteles wrote:

Do not tell me that Bernardo Walsh had something to do with Thomas Street, Dublin?

Bernardo’s tomb in front of the altar of St.Patrick’s chapel

Not Thomas Street, sadly, the ‘Billy’ connection is with Waterford. Quite a good summary of Bernardo’s life and family in translation in that blog. There is also a recently published book on Bernardo called Dios, Clan y Negocio [God, Family and Business] by Agustin Guimera Ravina, which includes, in an appendix, Bernardo’s own memoirs in English.

Briefly; the Walsh family had been Waterford merchants of long standing until the change in the political climate in the second half of the 17th century prompted them to decamp to the Canary Islands. Bernard Walsh, the last head of the family to have been born in Waterford [20 Aug. 1663], left the city in August 1679 in an exile that eventually took him to Tenerife where the family, and a batch of other Catholic merchant families of Waterford, had already become established.

Bernard Walsh [Bernardo Valois] in particular prospered as a trader and wine exporter, although in what must have been an occupational hazard he developed the gout that he was to spend much of his life trying to get relief from.

Bernardo never severed his links with Waterford and when news reached him of his aged mother’s death in March 1711 he had ‘oficios and masses said for her soul in the city and port and all the convents.’ The most enduring Walsh connection with Waterford, following their journey into exile, was their patronage of the Holy Ghost Hospital in the city.

Henry and Patrick Walsh had founded the hospital in 1545 by purchasing a portion of the recently dissolved Franciscan Friary within the walls of the city. The new hospital was dedicated to the care of sick and infirm of both sexes and the hospital charter, in return for their continued patronage, gave the Walsh family the right to nominate the master, subject to the approval of the Corporation.

The Holy Ghost Hospital remained a Catholic institution throughout this period, despite the absence from the city of their primary patrons and despite the fact that the composition of Waterford Corporation had become exclusively Protestant after 1690. It seems that the Corporation were content to allow the hospital function, with all its mass celebrating papist rituals, throughout the era of the Penal Laws and the records suggest that the masters appointed in this period, who were all Corporation members and Protestants, conducted intermittent correspondence with the Walsh family in Tenerife, usually inviting them to send money under various guises.

The Waterford chroniclers, Smith and later Ryland, each noted that a tablet over the main door recorded that the hospital had been repaired and enlarged in 1741 and 1743 by the Corporation. The interesting thing, from a social and architectural point of view, is that this repair/enlargement of the hospital carried out by the Corporation did not seem to serve the purpose of improving in any way the quality of the accommodation, which remained grim and medieval, but it did have the effect of grafting a new brick, triple-gabled, frontage onto the crumbling edifice, literally giving the Holy Ghost Hospital a Protestant facade!

The Holy Ghost Hospital in Waterford shortly before demolition. The ruins of the Franciscan Friary remain

A photograph of the hospital, shortly before its demolition in the 1890s, survives and has been reproduced in a recent book on Irish Gothic Architecture and although the building had clearly been ravaged by decay over a prolonged period and patched in the most haphazard fashion, just enough of the new,18th century, gabled facade was still discernible to hint at the remarkable history encapsulated in this wonderfully complex building, which was afterwards reduced back to just the ruins of the Franciscan Friary that we can see today.