Praxiteles

This photograph from posting 246 of many moons ago, gives an idea of the location, dimensions and tinctures of Westlake’s stations of the Cross in Maynooth College Chapel – needless to say, I am not talking of Hacker Hurley’s St Mary’s Chapel in Maynooth (an excerside, we are to believe, represents rescuing Vatican II from the ashes!!).

Apparently, the church, in some version, was built in Castletownbere.

Jeremy WIlliams in his history of Victorian Architecture in Ireland is rather harsh in his comments on R. M.Butler’s (1972-1943) essays in the neo-Gothic idiom. The oeuvre includes: Holy Cross, Belfast; Holy Family, Dublin; Presentation Convent, Dingle; Clonbroney; Balla; Glenamaddy; Mulranny; Newport; Scotshouse; Aughnacloy. He also built the National Concert Hall, Dublin.

St Colman’s Cathedral Cobh, Co. Cork

Re doors on the west facade.

This is waht was on the door befopre it was taken off for “repairs”

And on a liturgical point, please note how the comrades on the Cobh Liturgical Soviet also overlook what is happening with the flower vases and candlesticks here. You will note that two candlesticks remain on the plinth behind the altar table -where they are supposed to be – while four along with two vases have been placed on the altar table – where they are prohibited from being placed.

Praxiteles has just received a series of photographs of some of the latest degradations happening in Cobh Cathedral. We start publication of these with a view of the Altar of the Cruucifix which has been converted into something akin to a louche boudoir of unsavoury purpose. What precisely all of this has to do with the promotion of vocations is very difficult to say and, if this is all that is being done to promote vocations, it will have a predictably fruitless outcome.

On a small point of detail: the HACK and the various comrades on the Cobh Liturgical Soviet have for long insisted on a very (mindlessly) rigorous observance of liturgical norms when it comes to promoting their own Fidel Castro type take over of the liturgy in the diocese of Cloyne – indeed another area of widespread abuse in the diocese of Cloyne requiring some public attention. However, Praxiteles would like to know how this altar arrangement can be justified when both the Rurbicae Generales and the Institutio Generalis Romani Missalis specifically state that nothing is to be placed on an altar other than what is strictly necessary for the celebration of the Mass?

Of course one of the absolutely disasytrous things about this piece of junk is that the grave stones that were originally inside the gate oft he 1832 church are now quite literally on the side of the road and McCarthy/Lynch sees no difficluty with that.

Again, the 1850 flat grave-slab of priest (aged 37) who died having contracted famine feaver from famine victims he was ministering to was discovered under the modern floor of the 1832 church. Being the uncivilized barbarians that McCarthy and Lynch were, they removed the grave slab from where it was and, in what can only be described as a piece of tight-minded house-keping, placed it in the row of grave-stone now on the side of the street ensuring that an inscription which had never been exposed to elements for over 150 will very quickly disappear. As for the grave of the priest concerned, the mean minded McCarthy and Lynch “marked” it with a pretty cheap piece of brass about the size of a fa-box. Just what do you have to do to acquire the status of a hero with the likes of McCarthy and Lynch? Demolish and wreck as much as you can of what little we have of an ecclesiastical patrimony?

St. Lachteen’s Church, Donoughmore, Co. Cork

Here we have an external shot of an elevation of McCarthy and Lynch’s “triumph” of modernist super-bungalow architecture in the wilds of rural Cork in what was clearly an effort to bring Le Corbusier au peuple.

Really, a smashing piece of sub-Leonardine genius !

St. Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, Co. Cork

Here we have an external view of the Baptistery door from whil all the iron strap work by Fagan’s of Dublin has been stripped. Will it all return, Praxitiles wonders and in in what condition?

Nathaniel Westlake’s published an important book A History of design in Painted Glass on stained glass iconography – a history of stained glass design in the principal countries of Western Europe from the earliest times to the seventeenth century, illustrated by accurate black and white linear drawings and offering interesting suggestions about individual windows’ dating and iconography. Westlake (1833-1921), the scholarly head of a firm of stained glass manufacturers, belonged to the circle of artists and designers patronised by John, 3rd Marquess of Bute, who was himself keenly interested in Christian art of the middle ages, and each volume was consequently dedicated by him to the 3rd Marquess.

3. THE CORK COUNTY COUNCIL PLANNING DEPT. CHRISTMAS BONANZA

The Results:

On December 1, 2008, Praxiteles posted the following:

2. THE CORK COUNTY COUNCIL PLANNING DEPT. CHRISTMAS BONANZA

The Results:

On December 1, 2008, Praxiteles posted the following:

And another application to Cork County Council for the construction of “storage space” ath the rear of theparish church at Newtown Shandrum, Charleville, Co. Cork – again for unknowna nd unspecified substances whose consumption in large quantities in a rural parish did not seem to arise and whose consumption in the context of declining population seem all the more curious. A further information letter is currently out on this – it appears that Cork County Council manages to garner enough energy to ask what the storage space is intended for. The reply is not back yet and it looks as though time is running out for this one to avail of the Christmas bonanza!

The planning register no. is Cork County Council 08/8780.

On this one Santa must have gotten stuck in the chimney or else the party time overtook the Christmas Bonanza Rush for a a request for further information (of all things!) was asked for and clearly had not arrived on time for the Christmas Sale of the Century.