Praxiteles

Just to make the point:

Here are three pictures of the scaristy door in Kanturk church:

1. The original door needing conservation and/or replacement;

2. The dog’s dinner of a mess that has replaced it _ and which MUST be removed;

3. What you could have if you get the RIGHT people to do the job CORRECTLY and who KNOW what they are doing.

(who ever heard a recessed doorway like this in a neo-Gothic building? The stupidity is beyond measure!

To return to the making of replacement doors for neo-Gothic churches:

Here is a link to the Crown Guild of Master Wood Carvers who provide a whole host of door replacements made to traditional materials and methods. It is a site well worth knowing for anyone interested in conservation or restoration of neo-Gothic buildings

http://www.woodcarversguild.com/wall_coverings_v2/doors_door_surrounds/1.htm

@Fearg wrote:

I’m fairly sure the tracery was new when the palace was rebuilt. The window is now further south than the original south end of the hall, as that end of the hall was modified to form St Stephen’s entrance. See the below for some idea of what the original may have looked like (rather like the north end does today):

http://www.show.me.uk/gunpowderplot/popup_img_64.htm

and here we see where the original window was converted to an arch, with Barry’Pugins work further south:

http://www.viewimages.com/Search.aspx?mid=52697562&epmid=3&partner=Google

Thanks Ferg for that !

So, would the tracery date from the 1840s then?

More on Perpendicular tracery:

Choir of Glouster Cathedral (c.1350)

http://www.racine.ra.it/ungaretti/gothic/gloucester_cathedral.htm

Does anyone know anything about the tracery in the great window of Westminster Hall? Is it original, or was it installed in the mid-19th. century at the time of Barry and Pugin’s rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament? From the heraldic achievements in the glazing, the glass is at least post 1837 for it displays the modern arms of the British monarch asopted by Queen Victoria.

@ake wrote:

Absurd.

Reminds me of those biscuits, with the wafers and the pink marshmellow stuff in between. What’re they called?

Is this actually an inside joke? Are the priests laughing behind the parish’s back, actually tolerating this? I can get the joke. it’s quite comical.

MIKADO?

St. Colman’s Church, Ballintotis, Midleton, Co. Cork

For the benefit of the enforcment office of Cork County Councilm in the event that they might stir themselves and get out to Ballintotis, here are two photographs of the interior showing where the radiators of teh heating system wwere and where they are not. Again, work carried out without pkanning permission and without a declaration!

Ballintotis update (12 September 2007)

Some further pictures of Ballintotis taken in these days and posted on 12 September 2007.

Just notice that the interior is also having work done to it. The radiators have been taken from the wall. Again, no mention of DEclaration, Planning Permission or anything else and more importantly, no action or willingness on the part of Cork County Council to enforce the law. Just imaging what would happen if anyone with a house that was a protected structure went off and demolished part of it? Or, just imagine what happens to people who build houses without planning permission and Cork County Council quickly rushes out to demolish them – even if means putting families out on the road? WHy is it that in the juristiction of Cork County Council we have one suce for the goose and a completely different sauce for the gander when it comes to applying the planning laws? Prhaps it is time to have this situation referred to the Ombudsman for Local Government?

Praxiteles is not certain that a commission of this sort under episcopal jurisdiction would be any more effective that something under the jurisdiction of the state.

Praxiteles believes that such a commission would end up as nothing other than the Cloyne HACK writ large. Like the Cloyne HACK it would be probably stuffed to the gills with a crowd of lackies only too willing to bend the subservient forelock to whatever the most vandalistic bishop would want. For instance, Praxiteles could not see them going against or even resigning before the prospect of something like Eamonn casey’s devastation of Killarney Cathedral.

As further proof of the non-viability of the proposal Praxiteles would have to point a very accusing index at what might be termed the protozoean proto-type of such a commission: namely the Liturgical Commission of the Irish Episcopal Conference and its Art and Architectire sub-committee. We are only too aware of the pseudo arty f***y pretensions of these enteties and of their deep antipathy to anything remotely connected to the tradition of Christian art and architecture. It needs hardly be said how much they know about this tradition. Praxiteles thinks that it would take the diversion of Shannon to purgate those particular pigstys.

No. Praxiteles believes that any effective watchdog organisation must remain juridically independent of both Church and state. It should have a broad popular base and pursue its activities in accordance with the wishes of its members and supporters. At present in Ireland, there are sufficient provisions of law to ensure the protecteion of the cultural patrimony of ecclesiastical architecture. However, the problem with it is to ensure its enforcement. That is what groups like the FOSCC should concentarte on.

For instance, the enfprcement of the Planning Laws is left to the Local Authorit enforcement officer. It is not inconceivable that a Local Authority planning officer will not want to take action against a parish priest or bishop who sets about wrecking a protected structure. It is not inconceievable that such a planning officer or someone else from the Local Authority will privately contact a vandalistic priest or bishop to tell him to ensure not to wreck anything before the enforcement officer comes to view the site or to have everything back nicely in place when the enforcement officer comes to see what has been reported. A thousand other trickes of half-hearted enforcement could be cited. However, in circumstance such as these, an independent organisation such as the FOSCC could do great work ensuring that the Planning Act is enforced by taking action against the local authority or by complaining the local authority to the Local Authority Ombudsman or merely by publicising the activities (or lack thereof) of the loacl authority!!

@ake wrote:

a bit late in the day for that now.

The state needs to intervene and declare our churches national monuments.

That could well takes us from the frying-pan and into the fire. Can you imagine what the OPW would do?

Better, I think, to encourage private groups or associations to take on the mantle of watchdog and use the law to protect them.