Praxiteles
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Praxiteles always hates being the harbinger of BAD news but it looks as though the returns just filed with teh Companies Ofice by the St. Colman’s Cathedral Restoration Fund could well be the cause of attracting the woolf (in the form of the Corporate Enforcement Office) to the door of the great, the good and the supereducated who jointly make up this commercial enterprise.
Clearly, the aspirations of its chairman’s call for prayers in a financial report (surely a first) to see the days when his plan to vandalize the interior of Cobh Cathedral takes us to stratespheric delusional levels.
The fun continued in the enterprise when, finally, we are told that Dr. Tom Cavanagh aka Mr Tidy Towns, resigned a full year ago.
The most interesting piece of news from this years tale is the departure of the eminence grise behind the whole sordid affair and the one who was the great driving force in trying to wreck, vandalize and render pagan the interior of Cobh Cathedral, namely one Denis Reidy. It appears that he has thrown in the towl and gone nearly full time to the golf course. However, given his nose for self preservation, he may quietly have been told by those who know of the rocky road that still faces those left on the steering committee.
The funniest bit of all come in the form of Denis Reidy’s replacement a country curate brought in from the wilderness of the Galtee mountains called Robert Anthony Morrissey. He tells us that he has no other company directorships -that might be just as well!
Now a few interesting questions arise as a result of the figures supplied tot he Companies Office. We are told that the Restoration Committee spent over Euro 150,000 during their financial year. Yet, anyone who has been reading this thread will tell Mr Paul Appelby, not as much as a coat of paint has been put on the doors of Cobh Cathedral in the past twelve months. So, what “restoration” was the money spent on?
It appears that Euro 4,000 was spent on the bells and other than that, the rest, Euro 147,000 was spent on what are very generically called “professional fees”. Now, Praxiteles just wonders whether some or all of that money did not go to pay the expenses incurred by the Trustees of the Cathedral in their Oral Hearing outing? Did some of it go to Brian McCutcheon, the solicitors the barristers, the hotel etc? Praxiteles hopes the Companies Office will want to check out those little details over the next few months.
It is also interesting to see that none of the respectable business people of Cork will have anything to do with this outfit. No one from their renks has filled the gaps which have been (so as to speak) bushed up by fine speciments of the bas clergé.
@ake wrote:
Ramsgrange parish church. Wrecked.
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Can someone tell me what that micky-mouse bill board doing in the vicinity of the Altar?
@Antipodes wrote:
The William bell is dedicated to St William of Rochester because of his generosity to the poor and to his adopted orphan son, and for his curing of an insane woman. This is such a good fit for Robert William Willson, first Bishop of Hobart Town, in his mission to convicts and orphans, and in his significant involvement with the care of the mentally ill in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. It was Willson who obtained the design from Pugin that was used for St Patrick’s, Colebrook.
Of course: Our Lady, the patron st. of the church, and the founder’s patron saint.
Here is an extract from the Newsletter of the Pugin Foundation reporting on the scientific approach taken at ST. Patrick’s Colbroke, Tasmania to recover the original paint scheme of this this church. It seems to Praxitekes that this is exactly the kind of approach so badly needed in Ireland to resurrect the stencil colour schemes tah have been so brutally painted out in the most awful colour schemes.
Here is an interesting chronology of the restoration going on at St. Patrick’s, Colebrrok, Tasmania, starting with the bellcote which has been provided with three new bells dedicated to Our Lady, St. Patrick, and St. William (of York ?). Note the attention to detail that allows you to identify the bells by the colours and the flowers with which they were decorated for their consecration.
@Antipodes wrote:
The 2004 book, Churches of the Diocese of Ferns: Symbols of a Living Faith, published by the Diocese of Ferns, says that All Saints, Templetown, was opened on 21 May 1899, Michael Power of Tintern being the ‘architect and builder’.
Clearly, some details have been copied from Barntown, albeit a little crudely as, for example, in the west window tracery. The roof trusses are indeed similar to several in Australian churches by Pugin. Such trusses were used by Pugin in a number of his English churches as well, including St Marie’s on the Sands, Southport, illustrated in his highly influential and widely read 1843 book, The Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture in England.
There are a number of churches in New South Wales dating from the 1850s that have compositional elements and details copied from Pugin churches there, so I can well imagine that the same could have happened in Ireland.
BTW – would you have an ISBN number for that book? Thanks.
As regards an architect, a search on google produced this:
“Templetown
Return to Fethard and take the road to Hook Head. Just outside Fethard on this road is Templetown. St Elloc, a brother of St Dubhan, established a church here and the ruins are still visible. It later became a site for the Knights Templars who were later suppressed by the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem. The ruins of Killoggan Castle, a Templar’s castle, are nearby. It was later taken over by the Loftus family of Loftus Hall. Templetown Parish Church was designed by Pugin and features Gothic architecture”.
Praxiteles cannot vouch for the accuracy of this information and was unaware of this church as belonging to Pugin’s work. From the style etc. its not incredible that Pugin or one of his students designed it.
Just note the difference in the way this church is kept and maintained and the church at Tagoat. In Tagoat, all the altars have cloths. Here, not even the High Altar is vested. A simple liturgical principle: nothing is to be placed on the Altar except what is necessary to say Mass is not observed – note that two of the candle sticks have been removed from the praedella of the Altar and dumped on its mensa.
The ceiling is rather spectacular and similar to one in Australia.
Earlier on this thread we referred to the puginian village church at Liscarroll, Co. Cork, curently the subject of a planning application before Cork County Council for the entire gutting of its interior and for the partial demolition of the massing of the structure by the demolition of the Sacristy (for which Cork County Council -inexplicably and probably unlawfully- granted planning permission last year). Several submissions were made to the gutting application presently before the County Council including one drawing attention to the puginian elements of this church built in 1869 by a builder called J, Thornton: sacristy massing, the stepped tripartite lancets, the bellcoote (which also seems to be in the focus of the iconoclasts), the fine traceried chancel window, the open unceiled roof, the kingpin roof beams etc. Comparisons were made with similar puginian village churches in Tasmania and in New South Wales. Curiously, these cubmissions made no mention of the small group of village churches in Co. Wexford built by A.W. N. Pugin. Preaiteles believes that a study of this group of rural churches will strengthen and consolidate the points made in the submissions on the bases of rural churches in Tasmania and in New South Wales. As an example, Praxiteles is posting the West facade of Tagoat, Co. Wexford the central section of which is clearly related to the simpler West facade of Liscarroll.
@Antipodes wrote:
Yes, Praxiteles, you will find 12 images of Bree and 24 images of Tagoat at:
Glad to see that Tagoat is still largely intcat -and in no small way due to the efforts of the PP Fr. Matthew Glynn, a longtime student and expert in all matters Pugin.
@Antipodes wrote:
There are 34 images of the exterior and interior of St Alphonsus’, Barntown, at:
Thanks for that. Anything on Bree or Tagoath?
Some shots of St. Alphonsus Barntown, Co. Wexford built by A.W.N. Pugin 1843/1848
1. SHows the interior in c. 1870 (note the stencil work on the arches).
2. AN aerial shot of BArntown in c. 1960 (note the recessed arch of the facade -feature repeated by E.W. Pugin in Dadizele, Barton, Cobh and by G.C Ashlin in Mallow. It appears to be based on prototypes at Amiens Cathedral and at Peterborough).
@ake wrote:
Thanks;here’s the south chapel window. I’ll put up one of the great window soon.
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It’s a great pity the main altar railing is gone here. from the looks of it it may have extended the sanctuary one bay into the nave, like the rowe street church in Wexford which works beautifully
btw Here’s of a shot of the exterior which is also superb.
http://www.ferns.ie/parish.shtml?Id=TempletownYes, the facade is very fine. Pit the bell is missing from the bellcoote. Also, the use of the triumphal arch to disguise butresses is a feature used also by A.W. Pugin in St. Alphonsus, Barntown. Who is the architect here? It really is a little gem.
@djasmith wrote:
These are the pictures which I find most interesting (some are from post posts on this forum),
Church Facade today
Thurles
One of the original plans for the church before the builders had a disagreement with the Passionists and came back a few years later with a different plan
Dungannon(note all those similarities)
JJ McCarthy also did another romanesque church at Lixnaw in Co. Kerry but I have not a photograph of it.
@Rhabanus wrote:
This of course is the answer to ake’s earlier question [#3524] as to how anyone came up with the notion to remove altar rails. One reason contends that the rail functions as a barricade, separating the laity, worshiping in the nave, from the clergy leading the liturgical prayer in the sanctuary. One can easily point to to the bema in early basilicae like S. Sabina, Rome. One teacher of liturgy in America refers to it as an early-Christian and medieval method of “crowd control.”
A second reason involves the actual function of communion rails – to provide for the reception of Holy Communion. As the Church’s doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist developed over time in response to various errors concerning the mode of Christ’s presence, and as genuine Eucharistic piety sought clearer and more reverent ways of expressing genuine faith in Christ’s real, substantial, supernatural presence under the Sacred Species, the faithful received the Sacrament on the tongue as they knelt in adoration. This kneeling posture assumed by the communicants, as the priest and deacon went from person to person along the communion rail, facilitated the process of distributing Communion and reduced the risk of dropping the Sacred Host.
Once ecclesiastical authorities agreed to allow the faithful to be communicated whilst standing, much began to change. Reception of Holy Communion now is a brisk, business-like affair with lines of moving individuals advancing toward the priest or deacon (or in many places the ubiquitous “exrtraordinary minister of the Eucharist”) often reaching, if not snatching, at the Host and stalking off either out the nearest door or back to the pew. Chewing gum, soiled palms (including telephone numbers scrawled in ink), tongue piercings, strange postures, and ambiguous hand gestures now feature with increasing regularity in the reception of Holy Communion in North America. Most priests whom I know have either hound Hosts in pews or in the floor, or have had perishioners find them and bring them to the sacristy.
Rhabanus notes that the Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum 93 directs that the Communion patens are to be reintroduced in places where their use had been discontinued: “The Communion-plate for the Communion of the faithful should be retained, so as to avoid the danger of the sacred host or some fragment of it falling.â€
Moreover, RS 92 instructs:
[[/INDENT]Although each of the faithful always has the right to receive Holy Communion on the tongue, at his choice,178 if any communicant should wish to receive the Sacrament in the hand, in areas where the Bishops’ Conference with the recognitio of the Apostolic See has given permission, the sacred host is to be administered to him or her. However, special care should be taken to ensure that the host is consumed by the communicant in the presence of the minister, so that no one goes away carrying the Eucharistic species in his hand. If there is a risk of profanation, then Holy Communion should not be given in the hand to the faithful.179One wonders whether the “extraordinary form of the Mass of the Roman Rite” safequarded officially by the motu proprio Summorum pontificum will become as ubiquitous throughout the Church as “extraordinary ministers” of the Holy Eucharist.
Actually, they are not extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist. They are extraordinary miniters of Holy Communion (cf. Eccelsiae de Mysterio of 17 August 1997).
Praxiteles was speaking to avery interesting person over the past few days on the subject of the Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum – a document which looks increasing set to destine the rising and falling of many in Israel.
While Praxiteles had already seen -and pointed out – that with the explicit authorisation of a two forms of the Roman Rite, many of our churches in Ireland will have to be de-reordered to accomodate the usus antiquior. The interesting, and informed person, agreed with this.
However, this person then went on to point out the time bomb ticking away in the middle of Summorum Pontificum and it is expressed in a mere brace of carefully chosen paroles. the two words are nunquam abrogatum. Insignificant, you might say but what these say is that “the rite of the Mass prescribed for use up to the publication of the Missale Roanum of 1969 was never abrogated. The upshot of that being that the liturgical disposition of churches required (and indeed ordered in law) for the celebration of the Mass in the older rite, likewise, has never been abrogated. And, of course, the consequence of that is that all the wreckage that has gone on is completely unauthorized AND moreover is completely unlawful, AND contrary to the prescriptions of liturgical law.
When all you concerned persons out there will be writing to the Planning Authorities about liturgical requirements, remember those two all important little words nunquam abrogatum !!
As a subsidium for the incredulous, here is the relevant text:
“Proinde Missae Sacrificium, iuxta editionem typicam Missalis Romani a B. Ioanne XXIII anno 1962 promulgatam et numquam abrogatam, uti formam extraordinariam Liturgiae Ecclesiae, celebrare licet. Conditiones vero a documentis antecedentibus “Quattuor abhinc annos†et “Ecclesia Dei†pro usu huius Missalis statutae, substituuntur ut sequitur”:
