Praxiteles

The attachment contains a scan of G.C. Ashlin’s original drawings (1894) for the Pulpit in Cobh Cathedral.

If I recall correctly, the town of Athlone is divided between the dioceses of Elphin on the western bank of the Shannon; and Ardagh and Clonmacnoise on the eastern bank. The cathedral for the former is in Sligo and that of the latter in Longford.

Concerning the Cathedral churches of the Church of Ireland, in general, these are the pre-reformation Cathedrals whose replacement after Catholic emancipation in 1829 gave rise to the spate of building of Catholic Cathedrals. However, as you mention in the case of Dublin, not all of the original Cathedral buildings retained their original outlines for a variety of resons (war, abandonment, refurbishing, the rise of the neo-classical and of the neo-gothic, changes of diocesan boundaries) but survivors might be seen in St. Canice’s in Kilkenny, St. Mary’s in Limerick or St. Flannan’s in Killaloe. Perhaps the worst victim was the Cathedral on the rock of Cashel which had its roof stripped off in the 18th century when a small replacement in the classical style was built in the town of Cashel. In stark contrast to the Catholic Cathedrals of Ireland, these buildings (at least since the 16th century) have not been subjected to the kind of liturgical vandalism that has seen the ruination of all of the neo-Gothic Catholic Cathedrals,except one (Cobh), the only neo-Romanesque in the country (Thurles) and two of the finest of the neo-classical ones (Dublin and Longford).

I hope to post some more statistics on the subject shortly.

A view of the West Portal of Cobh Cathedral taken in 1903 before the completion of the statuary.

The ornate wrought iron hinges are by Fagan’s of Dublin.

C. W. Harrison and Sons, Dublin are responsible for the tympanum of the West Portal showing the Christ Pantocrator, surrounded by the Four Evangelists, St. Colman, St. Ita, Blessed Thaddeus McCarhy and Bishop Boetius Mc Egan above a range of twelve Apostles.

The enclosed photograph shows the Chancel of Cobh Cathedral without the temporary altar placed there in the 1970s.

The Pro-Cathedral Church of the Conception of the Virgin Mary was built on the site of Lord Annsley’s town house at Marlborough Street and Elephant Lane, which had been acquired by Archbishop Thomas Troy in 1803 for £5,100. The building commenced in 1814 and was completed in November 1825. Plans for a church in the revivalist Greek Doric style, submitted by an architect who signed himself “P”, won the commission. It is accepted that the architect was George Papworth (1781-1855). Born in London, he moved to Ireland in 1806, and won commissions for Grattan Bridge, King’s (Heuston) Bridge (1828), Camolin Park, Wexford (1815), the Dublin Library in D’Olier Street (1818-1820) and Sir Patrick Dunn’s Hospital and was eventually Professor of Architecture in the Royal Hibernian Academy. The Pro-Cathedral contains monuments to Cardinal Paul Cullen and his immediate predecessor Archbishop Daniel Murray by Thomas Farrell. The apse is decorated by an alto-relief of the Ascension by John Smyth. Thomas Kirk (1781-1845) supplied a monument for the Reverend Thomas Clarke: two figures of Religion and Charity bewteen an urn which was his first exhibited work at the Society of Artists (as Piety and Chastity) in 1813. A relief of the Good Shepherd and a monument to William and Anne Byly are also attributed to Kirk. The organ is by the Dublin organbuilder John White. Its present architectural case was build by WIlliam Hill c. 1900. The great artistic treasure of the Pro-Cathedral, however, was the High Altar by Peter Turnerelli (1774-1839). Born in Belfast, Turnerelli had been deeply influenced by Canova (who much admired Turnerelli’s bust of Grattan (1812). From 1798-1803 drawing master to the princesses of George III, he was appointed Sculptor in ordinary in 1801. While his busts of George III, Washington and Wellington (1815), Louis XVIII (1816), Henry Grattan (1812 and Daniel O’Connell (1829) are well known, his master piece was the High Altar of the Pro-Cathedral with its splendidly proportioned mensa, reredos and ciborium. In 1886, rather incongrously, three stained-glass windows were installed behind the High Altar. Archbishop Dermot Ryan introduced a reordering to the Pro-Cathedral in the late 1970s. The architect for the re-ordering was Professor Cathal O’Neill . In an act beggering civilized belief, he demolished Turnerelli’s High Altar and reredos. The praedella of the altar mensa was salvaged and re-used to form a new altar erected on a lower plain in a hum drum extended sanctuary covered with carpet. The neo-classical altar rails were removed. The canopied and dignified neo-classical Throne was dismantled. The pulpit was reduced to the redundancy of a side aisle and a few surviving vestiges of the High Altar scattered about the interior. The Ciborium of Turnerelli’s High Altar was conserved and placed on a squat disproportioned plinth on a lower plain. The result has been the complete loss of the graceful, proportioned, symetrically articulated dimensions of the Apse and of the building itself which now lacks a central focus and suffers from the same focal void as Longford and Thurles. It seem strange that nobody seems to have realized that the High Altar was custom built to a location it occupied for 150 years. Attempts to relieve the focal void by drapery have not been convincing. It is suggested that at the time of the reordering, the significance of the High Altar and its provenance may not have been known to the architect responsible for its demolition. In Irish circumstances, the destruction of such a major work of art may possibly have cultural significance not too dissimilar to the bombing of Monte Cassino or the feuerblitzing of the Frauenkirche in Dresden.

I am sure the Great Professor knows all about vis locativa and will be more than happy to explain – on application.

Have you one of the “spiritual” space?

The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Sligo, has been dubbed by some as Ireland’s least loved Cathedral. It was built in a Germanic Romanesque style, quasi officially, and overwhelmingly, described as “Normano-Romano-Byzantine”. The Cathedral was built by Bishop Lawrence Gilloly to plans drawn up by George Goldie. WIth a seating capacity of 4,000, it has the largest capacity of any Cathedral in Ireland. The foundation stone was laid in 1868. The Cathedral opened for public worship in 1874 and was consecrated in 1897. The glass was supplied by Lobin of Tours. The High Altar is surmounted by a baldachino supported by columns of Aberdeen granite and was designed by Goldie. Benzoni is responsible for the large alabaster statue of Our Lady in the Lady Chapel. The Cathedral has undergone two major reorderings since it was built; one in 1970 which was minimalistic leaving all the main features in situ; and another more recently which saw a grille implanted in Goldie’s Baldachino which has the effect of obscuring the central focus of the building. Several prissy devices have been used to solicit a minimal attention for the new altar which has been placed in the main plain of the sanctuary. The fine altar rails have long disappeared and no Choir Stalls are to be seen.

The Cathedral of St. Patrick, Skibbereen, Co. Cork, is the Cathedral church of the the diocese of Ross. It was buit between 1825/1826 and 1830 by the Rev. Michael Collins, subsequently Bishop of Cloyne and Ross. The Cathedral was built in a neo-classical style, and while modest in scale, is not without interest. The architect for Skibbereen was Michael Augustine O’Riordan, a remarkable man by any standards. Educated in the neo-classical style, he worked extensively in Cork City and County. Some of his churches include the North Chapel in Cork i.e. the Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Anne (1808), Blackrock Village (1818), Doneraile (1827), Millstreet (1836), Bantry (1837), Kinsale (1838), and Dunmanway (1841). In 1826, at the age of 42, he made profession as a Patrician Brother. Along with continuing building churches, convents and schools throughout Cork, he spent his time teaching in the schools for poor run by the brothers. Skibbereen Cathedral, fortunately, survived the rush to “reordering” and the worst phases of its consequent iconoclasm – partly due the sensitivity arising from the recent status of the diocese of Ross. It was only in very recent time that a fairly minimialist approach to reordering took place which saw the preservation of the High Altar but the loss of a portion of the fine altar rails and their gates in the face of the forward thrust into the nave all too familiar in Irish “reorderings”. The refurbishment and renovation of elements of the Cathedral in Skibbereen are by Wain Moorehead of Cork. The same refurbishment could usefully have removed the amplifiers adhering to the capitals of the columns at the chancel arch. Choir Stalls never appear to have been installed in Skibbereen.

Another of the neo-classical Cathedrals, this time the Cathedral of St. Patrick and St. Phelim in Cavan town. Built to plans by W. H. Byrne of Dublin, it was begun in 1938 and completed in 1942. The tympanum of the portico contains figures of Christ, St. Patrick and St. Phelim by George Smith. The columns in the interior, the pulpit and statutes were supplied by Dinelli of Pietrasanta in Italy. The stations of the cross and the mural of the Resurreection are by George Collie. The High Altar is of green Connemara and red Midleton marble. The altar rails are in white Carrara marble. All of the original fittings and features are still in situ and reordering here has been minimalistic. Some of the glass was provided by the studios of Harry Clarke. In 1994 the Abbey Stained Glass company installed a set of eight stained glass windows made by Harry Clarke originally for the Sacred heart Convent in Leesons Street, Dublin between 1919 and 1934. Thee set depicts ST. Patrick and two princesses; St. Anne and the Blessed Virgin; St. Francis Xavier; St. Charles Borromeo; the Sacred heart and St. MArgaret Mary; St. Michael the Archangel; and the Apparition of Our Lady to St. Bernard. There do not appear to have been Choir Stalls.