Praxiteles

St. Mary’s Church, Rathkeale, Co. Limerick. (1866-1881)

cf. Dublin Builder, 1 May 1866, p. 119
15 November 1866, p. 270
Irish Builder, 15 April 1881, p. 126

Like nearby Kilmallock, this church was also built by JJ. McCarthy. Like Kilmallock, it has suffered from the same unwelcome attention doled out to Sts. Peter and Paul’s in Kilmallock:

The enclosed article from the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society on ST. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, is most illuminating with regard to one of the objectives of the 1980s “re-ordering”: a “return to JJ. McCarthy’s original concept”. That sounds all too familiarily like Cathal O’Neill’s plans for a return to E.W. Pugin’s original conception for Cobh Cathedral – backed up by an ahistorical use of archival material. Can we hope that O’Neill will be any more successful in Cobh than MacCormack, his modernist counterpart, was in Armagh?

BUILDINGS OF CO ARMAGH
[Extracts from Buildings of Co Armagh by C E B Brett, published by the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society in 1999.]

St Patrick’s (R C) Cathedral, Armagh

This is a most curious example of a very important building which changes both architect, and architectural style, half way up the walls. The bottom half was designed in 1838, in the English Perpendicular Gothic style, by Thomas Duff of Newry; the top half designed in 1853, in the French Decorated Gothic style, by J J McCarthy of Dublin. And just to complicate matters, the interior decor, applied to the conflicting structures of these two architects, is in part to the 1904 designs of Ashlin & Coleman of Dublin, in part to the 1972 designs of McCormick, Tracey and Mullarkey of Londonderry.

The result, unsurprisingly, is a disappointing muddle, quite lacking in the unity and integrity to be expected in a building of such importance (though Father Coleman, in 1900, surprisingly, thought that “the whole structure … shows a striking unity of design”). Of course many other cathedrals have grown and changed over long spans of years and changes of mastermind; but it makes an instructive contrast with its English counterpart, Westminster Cathedral, built to the designs of J F Bentley for Cardinal Vaughan between 1894 and 1903.

It is interesting that on 3 February, 1840, the Building Committee, “His Grace the Primate in the Chair, resolved unanimously that Mr. Duff be appointed our architect; and resolved, that Mr. Duff is to receive five per cent of the full amount expended on the building of the cathedral for his superintendence of the work, and that he will give the Committee one per cent as his subscription thereto”. Galloway suggests that his success at the Roman Catholic cathedral of St Patrick and St Colman in Newry, dedicated in 1829, “probably led to the commission to design the cathedral at Armagh”. Unlike his former partner, Thomas Jackson, Duff was himself a Roman Catholic. According to the 1905 Guide, in Duff’s lifetime “34 feet of the walls were built for £26,000, Dr Crolly himself personally supervising the work with the assistance of several foremen”.

The explanation for the original change of style is, that building was interrupted in 1844 by famine and cholera; Duff himself died in 1848; it was only in 1853 that a new Building Committee settled with his widow for £100 cash down, and the return of all drawings and papers relating to the commission. Work under the new architect did not actually begin until 1854. McCarthy had attacked Duff’s work in the Irish Catholic Magazine in 1847, but he was stuck with the ground-plan, as the walls had reached the tops of the aisle windows, but without tracery. “He completely changed the appearance of Duff’s design by getting rid of the pinnacles on the buttresses, the battlemented parapets on nave and aisles, and by making the pitch of the roof steeper” (Sheehy); also by introducing flowing tracery and numerous carved details. Maurice Craig comments, dryly, “Characteristically, he altered the style from Perpendicular to Decorated, so that the spectator must support the absurdity of “fourteenth-century” works standing on top of “sixteenth-century” (except for the tracery which was harmonised); but in most ways it is a very successful building”. It was dedicated in 1873.

The sacristy, synod hall, grand entrance, gates and sacristan’s lodge were built later (Galloway says, sexton’s lodge and gateway in 1887, sacristy and synod hall between 1894 and 1897), to the designs of William Hague, and he was “engaged on the designs for the great rood screen behind the high altar when he died in March, 1899. Mr. Hague’s work was taken up by Mr. McNamara of Dublin who subsequently superintended the designing and building of the rood screen, the beautiful Celtic tracery of the mosaic passages and floors, and the complex heating and ventilating system”. Further very extensive interior work was undertaken between 1900 and 1905 for Archbishop Logue to the designs of Ashlin & Coleman of Dublin. The cathedral was reconsecrated in 1903. A great deal of this excellent work has been removed.

St Patrick’s cathedral, with its twin spires, stands tall on its hill-top, successfully out-soaring its squatter Protestant rival on the opposite hill. It looks its best from a distance, approached over the drumlin country to south and west, reminiscent, when the light is right, of the twin spires of Chartres dominating the rolling plain of the Ile de France. Stephen Gwynn wrote of it in 1906: “Today Ireland is full of churches, all of them built within a hundred years – and almost every church, let it be clearly understood, is crowded to the limit of its capacity with worshippers. But here at Armagh is the greatest monument of all – planted as if in defiance so as to dominate the country round and outface that older building on the lesser summit: the costliest church that has been erected within living memory in Ireland; and not that only. It is in good truth a monument not of generous wealth (like the two great cathedrals of Christ Church and St. Patrick’s in Dublin) but of devoted poverty: the gift not of an individual but of a race, out of money won laboriously by the Catholic Irish at home and in the far ends of the world … So viewed, I question whether modern Christianity can show anything more glorious: yet in other aspects the new St. Patrick’s Cathedral must sadden the beholder. The stone of which it is hewn, as the money that paid for the hewing, is Irish: but the ideas which shaped the fabric are pure Italian…”

Externally, its best features are the twin broached spires, the great traceried seven-light west window, and the arcade with the eleven apostles above the central porch. Internally, its best feature is now the very high hammer-beam roof with a winged angel at each angle. Formerly, it was the marvellous lacy and frothy high altar, screen pulpit and rails of white Caen stone, all the work of Ashlin & Coleman; but these were unhappily ripped out and simply discarded in the re-ordering after Vatican II: two of the beautifully-carved crockets stand on my window-ledge to this day, having been rescued from the dump by the late Kenneth Adams. This was justified at the time on the grounds that “the fine character of the interior was marred by the later introduction of screens, elaborate altar rails and pulpit”: and what the architects set out to achieve was “a return to JJ McCarthy’s original concept … They recommended a simplification of the interior, which would also add a greater formality to ceremony”. If these were the objectives, few people think they have been successfully achieved. The new fittings already appear dated, and are utterly incongruous. “Neither the quality of the replacements nor the skill of the craftsmanship can disguise the total alienation of the new work from the spirit and meaning that was McCarthy’s ecclesiological and architectural inspiration. In this setting, these modern intrusions appear dispassionate and irrelevant” (UAHS, 1992). Jeanne Sheehy acidly records “the replacement … of a fine late Gothic revival chancel with chunks of granite and a tabernacle that looks like a microwave”. It is hard to divine why the church in Ireland has proved to be so much more insensitive in such matters than in most other countries.

However, one must agree with Galloway’s sympathetic summing up: “Ignoring the work at the crossing, which now has an empty feeling, this great cruciform cathedral has much beauty … The great height, the exquisite perfection of architectural detail, and the caring decoration of every surface of the walls … uplifts the heart and mind … although the building has a soaring loftiness, there is not a trace of gloom. This is Gothic Revival at its very best.”

Photographs: Michael O’Connell (see also colour-plate VIb)…
Situation: Cathedral Road, Armagh; td, Corporation; Parish, and District Council, Armagh; Grid ref H 873 457.

Reference: Listed A (15/20/20); in conservation area. Gallogly, ‘History of St. Patrick’s Cathedral’, 1880, passim; Stuart, ‘City of Armagh’ (ed. Coleman), 1900, p 443; Guidebook, 1905, Appendix A; Gwynn, ‘Fair hills of Ireland’, 1906, p 118; Sheehy, ‘J. J. McCarthy’, UAHS, ]977, pp 39-42; Craig, ‘Architecture of Ireland’, 1982, p 294; O Fiaich, ‘St Patrick’s Cathedral’, 1987, passim; ‘Ulster Architect’, June/July 1990, p 58; ‘Buildings of Armagh’, UAHS, 1992, pp 70-76, and see the detailed bibliography on the latter page; Galloway, ‘Cathedrals of Ireland’, 1992, pp 17-20, 185; J Sheehy, in ‘Irish arts review’, XIV, 1998, p 185; copy minutes of Building Committee, in MBR.

An interesting connection with JJ. McCarthy and St. Mary’s Cathedral, Killarney.

Divergent Paths:
The Development of Newfoundland Church Architecture

The following essay is adapted from a lecture given by Prof Shane O’Dea to the Newfoundland Historical Society on September 23, 1982.

There is a marked distinction in the architecture of religious buildings in Newfoundland, a distinction determined at first by period and then by denomination. The earliest churches, built before 1846, tended to be similar to each other, and essentially primitive or at least simple. In the 1840s the cathedrals of both the Roman Catholic and the Anglican churches were begun in the capital, and these had a significant effect on churches later constructed by these denominations. In consequence, when looking at Newfoundland’s religious architecture, one is looking at an early period that runs from 1662 to 1800, followed by a span of limited development (1800-1846), then by a interval of cathedral building, and finally by a period when these cathedrals influenced other construction. This essay focuses on the latter two phases of church architectural development.

Anglican Church, St. John’s.
The Anglican Church was inspired by Gothic Revival architecture.
Photo by Duleepa Wijayawardhana. Reproduced by permission of the Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage Web Site Project ©1998.
(31 Kb)

The churches built before 1820 tended to be rudimentary buildings, lacking towers, steeples and chancels, and were almost indistinguishable from local fish stores. Distinctions began to develop when the two major denominations – Anglican and Roman Catholic – began to build their respective cathedrals. The Roman Catholic community built their cathedral as a Romanesque Revival structure. The Anglicans, led by Bishop Edward Feild, were influenced by the Gothic Revival.

In an effort to establish and promote the use of Gothic Revival architecture in Newfoundland, Bishop Feild commissioned the distinguished British architect Sir Gilbert Scott to design the Anglican Cathedral. He also brought over William Grey as principal of Queen’s College, and made him diocesan architect. Grey designed numerous wooden Anglican churches in rural Newfoundland that combined local materials and craftsmanship to create models for other clergymen to follow. The last surviving church designed by Grey is St. James Anglican church at Battle Harbour, Labrador.

St. James Anglican Church, Battle Harbour, 1991.
Completed in 1857, St. James is typical of Anglican mission churches built throughout Newfoundland in the 19th century.
Reproduced by permission of the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador ©1998.
(26 Kb)

Although Grey left Newfoundland in 1857 and Bishop Feild died in 1876 their architectural influence carried on. The Gothic Revival remained the definitive Anglican style until after the First World War. In 1892 the congregation in Trinity borrowed a design from Nova Scotia and built the finest surviving Anglican Church in Newfoundland.

The Catholic churches built in the latter half of the 19th and early 20th century do not show the same commitment to one architectural style. J. J. McCarthy of Dublin designed St. Patrick’s, one of the earliest Catholic churches planned after the Cathedral, in the Gothic style. McCarthy was an associate of a leading figure in the English Gothic Revival movement, A. W. N. Pugin. The design for St. Patrick’s appears to have been inspired by Pugin’s design for St. Mary’s in Killarney, Ireland.

For Newfoundland Catholics, Renaissance or classical models came to dominate. The greatest of these was the cathedral at Harbour Grace. Begun in the 1860s under Bishop Dalton and pursued by his successor, Bishop Carfagnini, it was modelled after St. Peter’s in Rome. Finished in 1884, it was destroyed by fire in 1889.

Cathedral of Immaculate Conception, Harbour Grace, nd.
Catholic churches were modelled after Renaissance or classical architectural designs.
Unknown photographer. From Moses M. Harvey, Newfoundland illustrated : “the sportsman’s paradise.” Concord, N. H.: T.W. & J.F. Cragg, 1894, p. 91.
(27 Kb)

In the twentieth century, renaissance forms have been used more readily in the construction of Catholic churches. This reflects the religious and cultural connection between Catholicism and Rome, and possibly, a desire to distinguish itself from Anglicanism.

© 1998, Shane O’Dea

JJ. McCarthy’s plans for Monaghan Cathedral, 1861

Unlike the arcades in St. Saviour’s, Dominick’s Street, and in the College Chapel in Maynooth, Monaghan Cathedral managed to complete the arcade with statues. Can anyone identify the subjects and the sculptor?

Let us get right about the Second Vatican Council:

The kind of mass hesterical vandalism that has gone on in Ireland has nothing to do with the Second Vatican Council nor the revision of the rites and ceremonies of the Catholic Church. It has much to do with some very psychotic compulsions lurking not too far beneath the “national” psyche.

The provisions of the Second Vatican Council and the subsequent liturgical legislation of the Catholic Church nowhere mandates the kind of “re-ordering” that has gone on in Ireland. Indeed, the present law provides for the celebration of the Mass in historic churches with minimal, or where such is not possible, no change to their historic interiors.

re St Savour’s Dominick St.: why not start with with JJ McCarthy and the Gothic Revival in reland by Jeanne Sheehy. I believe the interior has been totally destroyed and vandalized.

That is an interesting comment about the doric pillars in the Pro-Cathedral and may supply a clue to the architect. I have a recollection of reading that Papworth specialized in the use of cast iron and was an early enthusiast: viz. King’s Bridge. He also did quite a bit of work on the Dublin to Drogheda railway – like a someone else about whom I have had reason recently to comment .

I cannot imagine a recently built “cathedral” in Paris in 1800. We may be talking of La Madeleine -but I have to check the dates. I will be back on this point.

Talking of various actes de vandalisme and of neglect and poor maintenance of 19th. century churches in Ireland, I thought you might like to see some of these specimens from Kilmallock:

The first photograph shows the door to what may have been a mortuary on the north west side of the church. I have seen more delicate ways of closing up a bull-ring.

The second photograph shows the present reredos of the High Altar. Unfortunately, some vandal decided to demolish the High Altar and reredos so as to leave only the tabarnacle with its canopy. However, that solution probably soon left its inadequacies more than evident and a “rectification” took place which saw a disporportionate reconstruction of the reredos. This is evident from the poor quality workmanship employed in the reconstruction as well as the complete lack of any esthetic in re-assembling the variously coloured marbles columns and shafts. The result…… Not content with that, the reconstructed reredos appeard to have attracted a further hammering from the iconoclasts: all of the finials have been knocked off and some of them have been dumped in the piscina of the Lady Chapel as can be seen in the third photograph. I also suspect that the candle sticks are from the side altars. Some of the original candle sticks from the High Altar are behind the present tabernacle and are in fine brass ,twice as tall as the one presently on the reredos. Obviously these were made so as to be in proportion with the soaring canopy over the tabernacle on the original High Altar. Of course, the area behind the present reredos is nothing short of the local unauthorized halting site.

The third photograph shows the unkempt clutter now scattered about the Lady Chapel. The long radiator in front of the mosaic is hardly helpful. And, I suspect that someone has painted brown what was probably a while surround for the piscina.