Rhabanus
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@samuel j wrote:
Take your point….. and fully agree on your comment on how it is not being spent
The Steering Committee and the Trustees are the ones responsible. Full Stop….Oh yes
People cannot, unforunately, decide how their money is spent, – and why not….okay I know what you mean in this case but what can people do formally to ask why …… we see from todays news on Charlie Haughey what happens when no ones asks…..
The good people of Cobh have been heroic in their financial giving, as well as in their moral support for the reclamation, preservation, and conservation of their fair cathedral. The vigorous defence of the cathedral by the Friends of St Colman’s Cathedral was another outstanding witness to the Faith and a vindication of the generations who built and worshipped in that worthy dwelling of the Most High.
This next remark may seem naive at first glance, but please consider it carefully, for it comes from experience (school of hard knocks). The good folk who, as a rule, would be more than willing to roll up their sleeves and pitch into some heavy-duty cleaning may well have a mighty good reason for holding back until someone in authority officially indicates a particular direction. You see, volunteer cleaning crews, despite their best intentions and meticulous care for the fabric, are rarely up to the kind of professional cleaning job that really ought to be done.
The extent of the neglect and incipient decay, evident in the splendid photographs provided earlier, suggests to me that even a superficial cleaning of the walls, windows, floors, etcetera, really requires the services of a fully-licensed (and insured) professional cleaning crew. In the case of at least one beautiful but neglected Victorian-Gothic church (on this side of the pond) that received a cleaning from its willing volunteers, they could reach only so high on extension ladders. Consequently a line of contrast went all round the church. Below the line, the wall was nice and clean]the proper kind of insurance[/I] is the correct solution to the cleaning problem.
The cathedral clergy [and that quorum hircorum antiquorum] ought to be hounded to get this necessary reparation under way.
The collection of anziani on that board posted by Prax is a real hoot! Is it actually the case that a committee of dotards with one 38-year-old loose cannon (canon-in-the-making??) constitutes the pride of Cloyne? Heavens to Murgatroyd!!!
Time for a good stiff wind to blow through the diocese of Clyone and take out the flotsam and jetsam of Carrigtwohill as well as the other timeservers.
What a reflection of the bishop’s judgement.
@Praxiteles wrote:
St. Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, Co. Cork.
The Altar of the Holy Family, located in the North transept, again has been stripped of its cloths and ornamenta. As with its counterpart in the South transept, Professor O’Neill proposed hacking out the predella of the altar and stacking benches in front of the altar.
The prototype for the central panel of the rerdos of the Altar is Raphael’s picture of the Marriage of the Virgin of 1504 now in the Brera in Milan.
I note from the photo provided of the chapel of the Holy Family that although the cathedral is crumbling away with each passing hour, someone has hung a false wreath on a pillar. More frippery! If the cathedral cannot afford a real wreath, then it is more prudent to do without until a real one can be obtained. Silken flowers and phony wreathes are tatty in the extreme and have no place in a house of worship.
The place needs a thorough cleaning. An industial-size dumpster parked outside could catch all the junk.
I gather from various remarks on the previous several photos that Cathal was some sort of local architectural guru before whom the regional prelates rolled over so as to let him scratch their bellies. How did he, with all his ill-conceived iconoclasm, rise to such prominence in Irish ecclesiolitics? Is he a relative of some archbishop or prince of the Church over there? Is his wife th esister of a bishop?
Why are some groups of people so eager to feed the dragon that promises to consume them? The right idea is to conquer the dragon, or at least banish the dragon lest it succeed in its malevolent designs. It’s pretty pathetic to think that no one in Ireland stood up to the old puffer and showed him the pointy side of a lance backing him inexorably toward the egress.
The thing about dragons is there’s more of fumery and puffery than of real substance to them.
Has no one advanced Cathal to the Order of the Boot?
@Praxiteles wrote:
Some more shots of the slime on the exterior stone-work at St. Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, Co. Cork
I note from the last photo that Cobh needs a resident hawk to decimate the pigeon population. That should keep at least the statues clean.
@Praxiteles wrote:
At the risk of appearing pseudo-intellectual for it, Praxiteles wishes to raise the question of slime – ecological slime that is!
When St. Colman’s Cathedral. Cobh, Co. Cork was “restored” some 15 years ago, the external walls were power -hosed and cleaned to a very white colour. Since then however the white hue has disappeared and been replaced by noticeable streks of what appears to be green slime on the West and South elevations of the building. On the North elevation a seemingly black slime has appeared and now covers extensives portons of the walls.
Can anyone explain what this is? What is the cause? And what remedies should be applied?
The architect in charge of the external restoration of Cobh Cathedral was Mr. David Slattery.
How could Rhabanus ever accuse Praxiteles of pseudo-intellectualism? Would you believe that I just recently came across a reference to slime in a quotation from Matt Walker’s Moths that Drink Elephant Tears and Other Zoological Curiosities (London: Portrait, 2006): ‘hagfish (Eptratetus stoutii) produce substantial amounts of slime when harassed’.
In reply to your query, then, Prax: have you been harassing the local hagfish in Cobh?
@Praxiteles wrote:
Asinus asino sus sui pulcher
Lupus pilum mutat sed non mores. (Suetonius citing a much older axiom)
Literal, pedestrian, unimaginative but accurate translation:
The wolf changes his fur, but not his character.Ye olde ICEL translacion (1970), using ye former principle of ‘dynamic equivalence:
The leopard does not change its spots.Al Gore: A zebra does not change its spots
@Praxiteles wrote:
At the risk of appearing pseudo-intellectual for it, Praxiteles wishes to raise the question of slime – ecological slime that is!
WHen St. Colman’s Cathedral. Cobh, Co. Cork was “restored” some 15 years ago, the external walls were power -hosed and cleaned to a very white colour. Since then however the white hue has disappeared and been replaced by noticeable streks of what appears to be green slime on the West and South elevations of the building. On the North elevation a seemingly black slime has appeared and now covers extensives portons of the walls.
Can anyone explain what this is? What is the cause? And what remedies should be applied?
The architect in charge of the external restoration of Cobh Cathedral was Mr. David Slattery.
Talk to those in charge of Mundelein Seminary north of Chicago. Several years ago, the exterior walls and niches were cleaned. One of the chemicals used was so corrosive that it wiped the faces off several statues and left horrid marks on others.
New chemicals added in ferocious concentrations to salt and dirt in order to melt snow are eating away paths, walkways, and church squares in parishes throughout the northern regions of North America.
@Praxiteles wrote:
Asinus asino sus sui pulcher
Flagellum equo et camus asino et virga dorso inprudentium! (Prv 26:3)
Qui cogitat malefacere stultus vocabitur. (Prv 24:9)
@samuel j wrote:
Very apt….. like it…
Even more apt is the admonition of Quintus Arrius to Ben Hur and his mates chained to the oars in the galley:
“So row well – and live!”@Praxiteles wrote:
No, I am inclined to think that its is more a case of qualis artifex pereo !!
Plus artifex quam pontifex pereo!
Fortasse etiam: Plus pompadex quam artifex pereo!
David Lawrence and Ann Wilson’s book, The Cathedral of Saint Fin Barre at Cork: William Burges in Ireland (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006) arrived by post today. A handsome tome indeed. This is the kind of book that ought to be done on St Colman’s, Cobh before it collapses of neglect.
The Introduction mentions that Cork was elected European Capital of Culture in 2005.
@Praxiteles wrote:
No, I am inclined to think that its is more a case of qualis artifex pereo !!
Ozymandias of Cloyne?
OZYMANDIAS of EGYPT
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.— Percy Bysshe Shelley
Perhaps the bold bishop will be immortalised as the patron saint of fallen arches?
@samuel j wrote:
With the Salt Air and continous gales we’ve been having, if something isn’t done soon there will be little wrought iron left and/or the finer detail will be rusted away
Has the Bishop gone into some form of a sulk seeing the ‘people’ spoke and would not let him get away with destroying the inside…… is this some form of silent protest by him to let St.Colmans rot…. if so it makes a mockery of collections for the restoration if not a penny is being spent on maintenance….
I think the psychological term for it is “passive-aggressive behaviour.” ‘Tis an ill bird that befouls its own nest.
@Praxiteles wrote:
And the is the bit that is enough to make you weep: the doors into the transepts and into the baptistery.
These are utterly disgusting! DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!!!
@Praxiteles wrote:
Just to change the abyss: after a trip to St. Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, Co. Cork earlier to-day, Praxiteles is able to bring you some interesting photographs of the present state and condition of this internationally significant monument. On a board, we are told that some £3,200,000 have been spend on the “restoration” of Cobh Cathedral. WHat have we to show for it? I will leave the readers to judge for themselves.
Let us start with a tour of the doors of the Cathedral. They are in a most deplorable state of neglect, nay abandonment. While the main doors are not as visibly effected by decay, they are nevertheless in need of attention especially the hinges and strapwork which appears to have some form of cancerous oxidization which is eating away at the metalwork underneath the paint. To my knowledge, nothing has been done to address this problem.
The main porch doors are all in a state of sad neglect, dirt, broken panels, and hinges that need repairs. Again noithing done.
The lesser doors leading into the Northa dn South transepts are beyond description – so shoking is their state of neglect. At this point the timers of the door are exposed to the elements and, as everybody knows, this is not the thing to do on a costal location. The same is truie of the lesser doors to the mortuary, and to the main door to the baptistry.
I publicly call on Denis Deasey, the former town architect of Cobh -who has stuill not cut his connections with St. Colman’s Cathedral- to explain why he allowede this state of affairs to develop and why he never lifted a finger to anything to remedy it? To quote someone else: je t’accuse!!
Je m’excuse un moment, s’il vous plait … mais qu’est-ce qu’ il y a sur la porte interieure?
Is it a note to the milkman?
Perhaps a calling card from the demolition squad [or reordering committee]?
Could it be His Lordship’s letter of resignation? “Gone north; please say the 10 am.”Did you manage to read the note, Prax? We are all eager to know its contents!
@samuel j wrote:
Plenty room now for “squatting on the floor” for Taize Masses and that kind of Jazz…. as once described to me by a wise owl….
Flannery et al must have been squatting, smoking some dodgy substances and have been in a psychedelic trance not to see the vandanism they were committing.
Sam, you’ve put your finger on it!! There! Behind the tabernacle on the side altar with the recumbent Christ underneath it! All their pipes and smoking implements. I was trying to figure out what the deuce they could be. They look like the detritus of Bob Marley and the Whalers. I suppose, in that case, they might qualify as third- or even second-class relics in the pantheon of Liturgically Reordered Ireland [LRI].
After a few drags and a couple of puffs on those, you too would be singing ditties and snatchets from “Joseph and the Amazing Technicoloured Dream Coat.” ‘Any dream WILL do, baby!’ I can see Austin in my mind’s eye, sashaying round the tabernacle in his amazing technicoloured dream-habit, treading out barefoot the merry measure with his throng of liturgical ‘experts’ (= “drips under pressure”) and sycophants in tow. Rarely had Ireland seen such leapin’ about and gnashing of teeth as the night “they drove ole Dixie down – and the reredos with it!” They jumped about madly like fleas on a cow’s back and cackled like the devil in springtime.
And that is how liturgical dance came to the Emerald Isle.
Care to share your favourite recollections of The Liturgical Movement in dear old Erin?
@Fearg wrote:
Some recent shots of St Saviours in Dublin.
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The interior is a wretched contrast with the original. The tabernacle atop a pillar looks utterly ridiculous. Can someone identify the altarpiece in the background of that photo? The sculpted relief at the bottom looks like Christ being laid in the sepulchre. Was this a mortuary chapel or does it commemorate Our Lady of Sorrows or the Death of St Joseph?
What is all that trash atop the altar in the ‘chapel’ of the Blessed Sacrament? It looks like a heap of dead flower stalks.
Thank you, Austin Flannery, wherever you are, for having destroyed the interior of a once-magnificent church. For shame!
@Praxiteles wrote:
And, what is probably the most famous monument in St. peter’s Basilica, Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s monument of 1678 for Pope Alexander VII – who built the colonnade in St. Peter’s Square
Note the movement of this piece. The colourful marble cloth covers the head of winged Death as the Grim Reaper extends the hour glass, for none of us knows the day or the hour when the Son of Man shall come.
@Praxiteles wrote:
And here is Canova’s monument to Pius VI, placed in the Confessio of St. Peter’s. Pius VI died at Valence in France in 1799 but his remains were not returned to the Basilica of St. Peter’s until the reign of Pius XII in 1949.
This raises an interesting point, Prax. The monuments of the popes on the main floor of St Peter’s Basilica are precisely that – monuments. Most of those commemorated on the main floor are buried in the crypt and their tombs can be visited on that level. Several of those raised to the honour of the altars (declared saints or at least blessed) are on display on the main level of the basilica. I am thinking here of St Pius X at the Altar of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Bd John XXIII at the Altar of St Jerome, and Bd Innocent XI at the Altar of St Sebastian. The bodies of St Leo I (the Great) and St Gregory I (the Great) rest beneath the altars dedicated to them, although one can see only the sepulchral urns containing their remains rather than the actual bodies lying clothed in papal vesture.
Are not some of the monuments on the main floor also tombs? I am thinking here of Urban VIII and Paul III. I was under the impression that these were their (highly monumental) tombs. I thought that Pius VII was entombed within the monument by Thornvaldsen. So the remains of at least some of the pontiffs who chose to be entombed on the main floor of St Peter’s are to be found there.
Where, then, are the remains of Pius VI? As you point out, Canova’s statue of Pius VI was kneeling in the confessio while his remains were in France. Where were his remains interred in 1949? Where are they now? I do not recall ever having seen them in the crypt. Please shed what light you can on this point.
Thank you.
