james1852
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@Praxiteles wrote:
Are there works going on at the church in Youghal at present? It is difficult to obtain any information about them if there are.
Here are some more photos of St. Mary’s, Youghal
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@Rhabanus wrote:
It strikes me as odd that although the statue of St Joseph is enshrined in a beautifully ornate Gothic niche, St Anne (or could it be Our Lady of Victory? Our Lady of the Christian Schools?) is standing on a plinth without a niche. Any idea where the statue of St Joseph and his Gothic niche ended up?
Our Lady of Victory/Our Lady of Youghal still exists at the rear of the church, I’m not sure but i think the shrine of St. Joesph is still in the church too.
@THE_Chris wrote:
Just out of sheer and complete interest, how much would the average stencil painting of a sanctuary cost, or are you allowed to reveal that to a forum?
Apart from revealing costs to the forum, the costing of stencilwork is a complicated process as you have to take into account many factors inc., area of the sanctuary, access scaffold ,design of stencilwork, no. of stencils to be cut out, wall measurements and positioning, no. of colours , amount of gold leaf to be applied and location of the church.There can be other factors to be included too, but basicly each sanctuary has to be looked at individually in order to give a costing .
This is a photo of The Sacred Heart Church , Templemore CO. Tipperary .The murals and stencilwork in this church were completely restored by us a few years ago, and now exists as a great example of how all Irish churches once looked.
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@james1852 wrote:
The stencilwork and paintings in carlow were removed many years ago.They were replaced with several individual murals of saints all around the sanctuary walls. These came from the Harry Clarke studio. I have some photos which I will post soon. These murals however were also torn from the walls in the 70’s. So this latest destruction is the third time this church has been interfered with.
These are the photos of carlow cathedral in 1952. The Harry Clarke murals are being restored along with the stencilwork surrounding them. Apologies for the quality of the images.
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@Praxiteles wrote:
Are you sure it is Youghal?
This is the photo of youghal with the spire, also i include a photo of the sanctuary in youghal following decoration by us in 1925, and the same view today with the murals intact and restored but without the stencilwork. It is similar to many churches where the actuall paintings remained but the stencilwork was obliterated. It never looks right as they are left hanging in mid-air with no embellishments.
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@Praxiteles wrote:
St Mary’s Church, Youghal, built in 1796.
Did this church originally have a spire ?, I have a postcard/drawing of this church from 1925 with a spire surmounting the tower.
Praxiteles wrote:And this is what it has been reduced to:The gutting that took placed here saw:
1. the demolition of the entire altar rauil which, like Cobh, spanned the transepts and nave]
The stencilwork and paintings in carlow were removed many years ago.They were replaced with several individual murals of saints all around the sanctuary walls. These came from the Harry Clarke studio. I have some photos which I will post soon. These murals however were also torn from the walls in the 70’s. So this latest destruction is the third time this church has been interfered with.The first photo is of kilclaren church Feakle Co. Clare, decorated by us in 1932. The second is of the same church desecrated in 1982.
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Praxiteles wrote:Here is a new chapel, dedicated to St. Rita, recently build in Mayshiel, East Lothian, Scotland, by Graig Hamilton with sculpture by Alexander Stoddart.Architect
Craig HamiltonThis chapel adjoins a house that Craig Hamilton designed and is a tour de force of contemporary ecclesiastical design and an exciting fusion of art and architecture. It takes the form of a small Italian chapel, with the west façade enlivened by Michaelangelesque detailing and a bronze bust of St Rita by Alexander Stoddart, who will also be producing life-size figures of St Augustine and St Nicholas. The commission included the design of almost all the interior fittings including the silver communion set, the tabernacle, the altar, the pews, the font, the consecration candelabra, the priest’s chair and the organ.
From the detail of this chapel (which accomodates c.40 people) it is more than clear that Mr. Hamilton was extremely well advised – and it shows. Note for instance that the coffered ceiling of the nave (modelled on that of the Pantheon in Rome) is without gilding while that part of the ceiling over the sancturay is distinguished by the gilding of the coffering]
Magnificent , at last a real ecclesiastical architect has emerged from the mire of the last 30 years. Let all the ‘bungalow’ architects that have destroyed our ecclesiastical heritage see for themselves what a real architect with talent can do.I just want to give some indication of the material we have. Unfortunatly we don’t have photographic or drawings of all the churches and chapels that the firm completed over the past 150 years. We would have 60 – 70 detailed perspective drawing/paintings , dating from approx 1870 to 1950s ,showing proposed and completed decoration schemes.We would also have maybe 200 black and white photos dating from1920 to 1960. We then have alot of photos taken in recent years of completed decoration or decoration still in existence.We also have estimate and wages books dating to 1900 and correspondence from churches over the years too.Unfortunatly a lot of our records dating pre 1900 were burnt by my grandfather who was a very private man and reckoned in the 1940s that they were’nt relative to the time.While we have a lot of the actuall cut out stencil designs, all of which we design and cut out by hand ourselves, these olny have a certain life span as when the’re in use they get clogged up after time and are then discarded.The problem with all this material is we haven’t got around to cataloging it, so at times it can be a nightmare trying to find things,but thats a job for another day.
@Rhabanus wrote:
James 1852!
Have you a catalogue of your materials? Are you planning to publish your work? Many, I believe, would purchase a record of your firm’s contribution to ecclesiastical art, architecture, and iconography.
Increasingly, the younger clergy who have survived the seminaries generally have an appreciation of the rich heritage of the church. With their commitment to the new evangelisation, they stand a fair chance of bringing young people back into relationship with the Church. Only a few clerics manques and some greying lemmings would follow the likes of guffer Paddy Jones and his simpering panpipes over the cliffs. The young, the virile, and the intelligent are looking for sound leadership, as any FOSCC member will tell you.
I have had discussions recently about putting together a book about the firm ,so i’ll have to see what comes of it. A student in Limerick university recently did her thesis on our firm for her MA and produced a fine volume which has given me encourgement to produce something.
Praxiteles wrote:Hello James 1852!I for one would most certainly like to see your archive of drawings and stencil patterns. Can that be arranged? Also, was it only the crib figures you were restoring in Cobh? As far as I can seen not a brass penny has been spent on decorating anything in Cobh Cathedral for quite some time. The cow-hands running the place do not want to spend the money. What they are doing with it I cannot imagine – it was collected on charitable pretence and I should assume that according to the terms of the charity act at least a certain proportion of everything collected each year should have been disbursed. But this has not been the case with the St. Colman’s Cathedral Trust Inc.
