Praxiteles

@derekbyrne wrote:

I should clarify I was refering to the republic of ireland.

Really, is not this all becoming very parochial in outlook?

We know that several “foreign” organ builders have built organs in Ireland since the 19th, century on the basis of their reputation. As a matter of interest, has Kenneth Jones built organs outside of Ireland – even the republic of Ireland?

And, is it necessary, as Counsellor Bannion seems to think, that every organ in the country should end up sounding the same?

St Mel’s Cathedral Longford

Press Release – Monday 27 February 2012 – Immediate

Attn: Newsdesks, Photodesks and Religious Affairs Correspondents

Statement by Bishop Colm O’Reilly concerning the tender process for the organ restoration of Saint Mel’s Cathedral

The following statement has been issued by Bishop Colm O’Reilly, Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise, concerning the tender process for the organ restoration of Saint Mel’s Cathedral, Longford:

“When Saint Mel’s Cathedral experienced a catastrophic fire on the night of Christmas Eve/Christmas morning 2009, I immediately made a public commitment that our beloved Cathedral would be rebuilt.

“Today I reaffirm this commitment and in doing so I wish to state that, arising from the trust which has been placed in me in my role as bishop, I have a key responsibility to lead this significant project in the most transparent and cost effective manner possible. Within these parameters, it is my intention that the rebuilding of Saint Mel’s, and all that lies within, must be completed to the highest possible standard in order that it will appropriately serve the faithful of Longford, our diocese and the country as a major place of Catholic worship.

“The restoration and future of Saint Mel’s Cathedral depends on the trust and support of the faithful. In order to safeguard this trust, responsible and sometimes difficult decisions are necessary to uphold the common good. In this regard I have received, over the last number of days, a formal representation from a Dáil deputy (see below), and separately media questions, both querying the awarding of the contract to rebuild the organ of Saint Mel’s Cathedral to the specialist Fratelli Ruffati of Padua, Italy. In this context I wish to place the following on the public record:

On the basis of the tender submitted, the committee established to oversee the organ tendering process recommended that the contract be offered to Fratelli Ruffati on the basis of musicality, design of the organ and value for money. A letter of intent has been issued. There will be a cost saving of over €30,000 by going with the Fratelli Ruffati tender.

The committee established to deal with the organ tendering process included the best expertise available in Ireland: it was chaired by Professor Gerard Gillen and included Dr John O’Keeffe (Maynooth) and Fintan Farrelly, the Saint Mel’s Cathedral organist, as members. In addition to these musical experts the acclaimed church architect, the late Dr Richard Hurley, was a member until his passing last December. I, along with Father Sean Casey (Cathedral Project Committee) and Gerard Neville (Punch Consulting Engineers), were also on this committee.

Three firms who gave expressions of interest were invited to submit plans and they also gave an oral presentation. All did so and each was heard for over an hour.

“On behalf of the Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnois I must be accountable for every cent received and spent in the interest of the faithful. Where possible employment contracts are awarded to Irish sub-contractors but, regardless of external pressures, I would be failing in my duty if I did not take value for money and quality of finished product into account.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those people who are deeply concerned and strongly supportive of the work that we are endeavouring to do to rebuild Saint Mel’s Cathedral.”

ENDS

PUGIN BICENTENARY

Finally, something to mark the bicentenary of A.W.N. Pugin’s birth which will be celebrated next Thursday, 1 MArch 2012.

The Irish Architectural Archive has organised an exhibition which will be opened next Thursday:

The Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht
will open an exhibition of drawings by
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin
from the Irish Architectural Archive
marking the bicentenary of his birth.

Richard Hurley

The following was recently published in New Liturgy:

The following spoken by Fr Jones at the introduction to the Funeral Mass recalls Richard’s life-long contribution to church art and architecture.

“Richard’s strong, Christian faith found a marvellous expression in his chosen profession. Church architecture and Richard have been a wonderful story since the 1950s. As a young architect he was a member of the Church Exhibitions Committee of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland. That would lead to membership of the newly established panel on church art and architecture of the Bishops’ Commission for Liturgy, formed during the Second Vatican Council and then becoming in 1965 the Advisory Committee on Sacred Art and Architecture. Richard was a member of that commission for over forty years, serving as its chairperson for nine years, after the death of his great friend, Mgr Seán Swayne. Both, around the same age, were mentors to one another, but not simply Seán offering the liturgical perspective and Richard expressing that in architectural terms. Both were persons of liturgy and architecture, for worship has to be expressed in the human condition, by the human spirit and body.

Richard has also served for many years as a member of our Dublin Diocesan Art and Architecture Commission.

For over a half a century, with passion, Richard engaged in the work of design and colour. He worked to high standards, sometimes disappointed by our failure to work to a vision captured in the Second Vatican Council, not just in the 1960s and times past, but also today when so many want to revert to a past long gone.

Richard often quoted Rudolf Schwarz, allowing me to note the influence on him of German Church Architecture of the 1920s onwards: ‘For the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, a moderately large well-proportioned room is needed, in its centre a table, and on the table a bowl of bread and a cup of wine. The table may be decorated with candles and surrounded by seats for the congregation. That is all. Table, space and walls make up the simplest church.’ Richard spent a life, with great passion, designing that simplest church, from the Arts Council awarded, single cell prayer room of the Bettystown Oratory of the Medical Missionaries of Mary in 1963 to the work on which he was engaged on the day he died, St Mel’s Cathedral in Longford. In between were many projects, cathedrals in Cork and Eldoret, churches, old and new in Dublin, Galway, Belfast and elsewhere in Ireland and England, special places like the Mercy International Centre, the Honan Chapel and Glencairn Abbey, the two places where I have been privileged to worship, almost daily, for almost twenty five years: the Liturgy Room in Carlow and St Mary’s Oratory at Maynooth.

The iconic Liturgy Room, a large well-proportioned room, ‘the great room of the house,’ ‘the layout … orientated towards an informal antiphonal gathering surrounding a central area focused on the altar,’ ‘a development of the idea of the family gathering around the table.’ Still using Richard’s own words, ‘ Everything in the room … a shade of white –wall, floor, ceiling, light fittings and carpet. The only colour added … the sap green of the fig tree in the corner … the oak furnishings and a terracotta Madonna and Child by Benedict Tutty.’ All of this, with ‘the limitations of the materials,’ providing ‘fertile soil for the growth of spiritual freedom.’

And St Mary’s Oratory in Maynooth College. Again in Richard’s favourite and preferred antiphonal layout. For those of us who worship there on weekdays, it provides the space for prayer and reflection. Richard’s re-ordering –in the ‘noble simplicity’ of the Second Vatican Council- complemented by the art of its time –he had a great respect for our heritage- and our time –the stained glass and the earlier work of Benedict Tutty and the newer work of Patrick Pye, Imogen Stuart, Ken Thompson and Kim En Joong, gives us each day our place to encounter God and celebrate the sacred mysteries.

If I mention the names of certain artists, it is to highlight the importance of their place in worship –a place that Richard never forgot. There are many other names because Richard knew the beauty that the artist could contribute. All of this ensuring that the Church is here, in the words of his great friend, Austin Flannery, ‘to serve humankind in a spirit of poverty, humility and love.’

Some said ‘stark,’ ‘minimalist’ and Richard might have said, speaking from experience, ‘it works.’ Richard gave his opinion, his preference, with a certainty. And so often he was perfectly right. Honoured by the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Pontifical University of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. Today by many colleagues, architects and artists.

Richard brought us on a journey. He used that word in explaining his designs. With masterly use of light, with simple design, with every shade of white, with the beauty of art, we were on a journey. We were led always and further within the space. We were led to prayer and worship. Ultimately we were led to God.

A.W.N. Pugin

A programme on the BBC Four

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00n58pm

Online Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain 1660-1850

http://www.henry-moore.org/hmi/library/biographical-dictionary-of-sculptors-in-britain

On Wallpaintings in English Churches

http://www.visitchurches.org.uk/wallpaintings

De Mortuis Nihil Nisi Bonum

Death of Dr Richard Hurley, Design Architect
for Restoration of St. Mel’s Cathedral
Many people were deeply shocked by the sudden
death on Tuesday, 6th of December of Dr. Richard
Hurley. Among those very deeply and immediately
affected are ourselves, especially those in
very regular contact with him in planning for the
restoration of St. Mel’s Cathedral on which he has
been engaged since he was employed here in 2010.
His death has deprived us of the services which he
was still to give us. Our loss is great. Of course, the
feeling of loss and sadness that we are experiencing
are of a different kind from those of his wife,
Bernardine, and their sons whose distress must be
intense. We deeply sympathise with them.
Richard Hurley was involved with us here many
years ago when the sanctuary of St. Mel’s was
reordered to accommodate the new style of celebration
of the liturgy. While he was no longer involved
when that work on the Cathedral was completed,
his original plan was clearly reflected in
the end product. It had stood the test of time very
well until it was destroyed by the fire of Christmas
Day 2009. Richard entered the scene again last
year when he was an enthusiastic applicant for
the role of architect for the current restoration.
When awarded the key role of Design Architect, he
expressed his delight in being back again. At that
time he promised me with the utmost confidence
that he would achieve the best possible outcome.
As soon as agreement was reached with the other
partner architectural firm involved, Fitzgerald
Kavanagh and Partners, he threw all his energies
into the Association’s mammoth task of agreeing a
programme for the restoration. Since then he has
continued untiringly to press on and meet targets.
He was a man in a hurry and the speed with which
he delivered his plans would have done credit to a
man of half his age.
He delivered his last presentation to the Diocesan
Art and Architecture Committees on the 16th of
November. When he said it was his last, he meant
that this would be the one which would be the
final part of his outline of his vision for the restoration.
He had no idea that it would also be his last
in a more final sense still. As so often happens in
life when we see someone for the last time, as he
concluded the presentation he just checked the
time that he would need to get to the train and
said ‘good-bye’, neither he nor we having any idea
that we would not meet again on earth.
We have now lost our Design Architect but not the
plans he had so carefully prepared for us. He had,
I would like to think, a sense of great satisfaction
in reaching the end of the planning phase. I would
like to think that achieving this stage in this particular
project has somehow rounded off the long
and fruitful career of Ireland’s best and known
and greatly respected Church architect. I would
like to think that this last of the 150 or so major
projects of his life meant more to him than most.
He had given it his full concentration and brought
to it the experience of a lifetime as architect and
the insight of many liturgists, of whom the late
Father Sean Swayne, Director of the Centre for
Pastoral Liturgy in Carlow, was the foremost. I am
very touched by the fact the Diocese of Ardagh and
Clonmacnois has just benefited in the double from
the mature and experienced Richard Hurley, doyen
of Church architects in Ireland. He was Design Architect
for the splendidly restored St Mary’s Church
in Carrick-on-Shannon which was completed last
year and has left us with the plans for St. Mel’s
Cathedral.
Many people in Longford met him when we had
our Open Day on the 18th of September last. He
was at the Cathedral Centre in the morning and
afternoon and spoke with anyone who sought
to speak to him about the model and the draft
plans for the Cathedral on display. He was easily
recognisable with his imposing presence, tall in
stature and impressive in appearance. His gracious
manner and willingness to listen to everyone must
still be remembered, I believe. He stayed for a long
time greeting and talking to people, a tiring exercise
in itself but something to which he attached
great importance.
I have known Richard Hurley for a very long time.
In recent times it was good to have reason to meet
with him very often. He was a truly an inspirational
man, a man of deep faith and integrity. He was
a man who has left a great legacy of fine work in
the design of churches and other buildings of note.
Among his writings is the beautifully illustrated
Irish Church Architecture. We have good reason to
be grateful that part of his legacy will enrich us. It
is my confident hope that when St. Mel’s Cathedral
has been restored his contribution will be seen as
his final gift not just to us but to the nation as well.
+Colm O’Reilly

St. Catherine’s, Meath Street

The remains of Barff’s chancel window of 1862

@apelles wrote:

Seasons greetings Prax, Heres an interesting article for you that enquires “just which Dublin church did AWN Pugin help design for JJ McCarthy”?
Note also how William MacBride from the Dublin Craftworkers gets a mention.

Saint Catherine’s: the poor man’s Cheadle?

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Meath Street … was this the work of McCarthy or of Pugin? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford (2010)

http://revpatrickcomerford.blogspot.com/2010/10/saint-catherines-poor-mans-cheadle.html

A few weeks ago, I visited Saint Saviour’s Church, the Dominican church in Lower Dominick Street, Dublin, which Jeanne Sheehy describes as “the most important” of JJ McCarthy’s “city churches.”

Saint Saviour’s is built in the 14th century Decorated Gothic style. The foundation stone was laid on 8 September 1852, and the church was consecrated on 15 January 1861. The façade bears many similarities to the west front of Basilica of Saint Clotilde on the Rue Las Cases in Ste Germain-des-Prés in Paris, without its twin spires. Inside, the fine interior of Saint Saviour’s, with its high arches and delicate tracery and carving, make it one of the most beautiful churches in Dublin; the north aisle and south aisle are later additions.

This was the finest of McCarthy’s Dublin churches, but for the rest of his life McCarthy had to defend himself against accusations that Saint Saviour’s had, in fact, been designed by the great architect of the Gothic Revival, AWN Pugin. In a letter published in the Dublin Builder on 1 February 1863, ‘An Architect’ queried whether McCarthy had designed Saint Saviour’s and implied that it was the work of Pugin.

For the rest of his life, McCarthy defended himself against allegations that he was not the true architect of Saint Saviour’s and that it was, in fact, the work of Pugin. But to be fair to both Pugin and McCarthy, it is clear that Pugin did not design Saint Saviour’s – instead, many of its details are reproduced from Saint Clotilde’s. But McCarthy’s denials and those comparisons do not resolve questions about which church Pugin designed for McCarthy early in 1852.

If Saint Saviour’s is not Pugin’s, I wondered whether there was another church in Dublin that had been designed by Pugin but which McCarthy managed to pass off as his own.

At the time, McCarthy had received three commissions in quick succession for landmark churches in Dublin: Our Lady Star of the Sea, Sandymount (1851), and Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Meath Street, and Saint Saviour’s, Lower Dominick Street (both 1851). These three churches were designed in quick succession in a period of sixteen months, so naturally there were questions whether McCarthy was the sole author and creator of each work.

McCarthy was in correspondence with Pugin early in 1852, seeking advice on his own projects and offering to undertake the management of some of Pugin’s commissions in return for half the fee and all the travelling expenses. The collaboration between the two architects was difficult and finally was cut short by Pugin’s death on 14 September 1852. But was that collaboration in the months immediately prior to Pugin’s death limited to the FitzPatrick chantry in Clough, or did it extend to McCarthy’s more public and prestigious ecclesiastical undertakings in Dublin?

The interior of Saint Catherine’s in Meath Street … similar in many ways to Pugin’s ‘perfect’ Cheadlle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

In mid-January 1852, McCarthy wrote to Pugin asking for drawings for a church in Dublin. Rosemary Hill points out in her biography of Pugin, God’s Architect, that this was the sort of arrangement Pugin would not have tolerated a few months earlier, even a few weeks earlier. But a letter in the collection of Phoebe Stanton shows that Pugin wrote back to McCarthy on 15 January, agreeing to undertake “finishing all the drawings details & anything required your superintending.”

And so the question must be asked; which church in Dublin did Pugin design for McCarthy? And did McCarthy claim it as his own – just as Charles Barry in the same year would claim Pugin’s work in the Palace of Westminster as his own?

Pugin’s letter, dated 15 January 1852, advises MCarthy: “Let everyone see and hear by the chancels … down the nave. Keep the churches bright with good windows … you will see that if you honour the chancel we will make your church a chancel.” By the time Pugin wrote this letter, McCarthy’s church in Sandymount was already being built, while work on Saint Saviour’s would not begin for another eight months. It is difficult to imagine that by mid-January 1852, McCarthy was not anticipating the commission he was about to receive for Saint Catherine’s in Meath Street.

So last week I headed off with a student to take a closer look at and to measure Saint Catherine’s in Meath Street. In every respect, this looks like Pugin’s ideal English country parish church. It is built in the Decorated Gothic style, with some Perpendicular features.

The Power memorial window in Saint Catherine’s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

I’m interested to find out that McCarthy’s commission came through the goodwill of those closest to Pugin’s own patrons in Staffordshire and Co Wexford, the Talbot and Power families, and that craftsmen who worked on it had all been engaged in Pugin’s own works in Ireland.

Saint Catherine’s replaced an earlier, octagonal shaped Georgian chapel that stood on the site. Canon John Laphen’s proposals for the new church were approved by his parishioners at a meeting called in February 1852 and chaired by Sir James Power (1800-1877) of Edermine, Co Wexford.

Power, who was the proprietor of Power’s Distillery, was closely connected with Pugin’s patrons in Staffordshire and Wexford: in 1843, he had married Jane Eliza Talbot, a daughter of John Hyacinth Talbot and a first cousin of Maria Theresa Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury; then, in 1851, at the age of 58, and almost 30 years after the death of his first wife, Anna Eliza Redmond, John Hyacinth Talbot married Power’s sister, Eliza. Perhaps through Power’s persuasive powers, Laphen’s plans were accepted immediately, and McCarthy began work without delay: the foundation stone was laid on 30 June 1852 by Archbishop Cullen.

McCarthy’s plans included a nave with open timbered roof, side aisles and chapel at an estimated cost of up to £9,000. The church was complete by March 1857 – apart from the upper portion of the tower and spire – and was dedicated on 30 June 1858. McCarthy’s intended tower was never completed, and the stub was finished off later with a machiolated parapet. The side elevations include perforated buttresses and trefoil aisle windows above the stone-roofed aisles.

The interior of Saint Catherine’s is plain. The impressive great East Window (1862) by Frederick Settle Barff (1823-1886), a former Anglican priest who had converted to Catholicism in 1852. The window floods the sanctuary with light, and it is matched by an equally impressive West Window with perpendicular panelled tracery … just as Pugin advised McCarthy when it came to designing churches.

‘The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Alexandria,’ by William MacBride of Dublin, in a similar position as the ‘Doom Painting’ in Saint Giles in Cheadle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

The painting in the architrave, separating the chancel from the nave, depicts ‘The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Alexandria,’ and is by William MacBride of Dublin. But is in a similar position as the ‘Doom Painting’ in Pugin’s ‘perfect’ Saint Giles in Cheadle, near Alton Towers, the Earl of Shrewsbury’s home in mid-Staffordshire.

Indeed, Saint Catherine’s is, for all the world, like a poor man’s Cheadle, which Pugin regarded as his ‘perfect’ work.

Pugin died on 14 September 1852, only weeks after the foundation stones had been laid for Saint Catherine’s and Saint Saviour’s. McCarthy quickly assumed the supervision of completing Pugin’s two Irish cathedrals, Saint Mary’s, Killarney, and Saint Aidan’s, Enniscorthy, and of Richard Pierce’s ‘Twin Churches’ in Wexford.

If any Dublin church was designed by Pugin, then it must have been Saint Catherine’s. Could McCarthy have managed to hide this by allowing himself to defend only the allegations made about Saint Saviour’s?

On the basis of evidence adduced from architectural details toi support this idea, what are we to make of Connolly’s work in Canada? Could we say that it was by McCarthy ? Or was Hennessey’s work really that of E.W. Pugin?