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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Aug 19, 2009 11:57:55 GMT
My nomination for the most beautiful Catholic church in Ireland is the College Chapel in Maynooth.
In regard to Irish Cathedrals, I would say St Colman's in Cobh.
In regard to parish churches, I would say Sacred Heart Church, Roscommon Town.
Any other suggestions?
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 19, 2009 12:19:40 GMT
The Honan Chapel in University College Cork is very fine, though a bit dark. It has an excellent set of Harry Clarke windows showing Munster saints. St. Brendan's Cathedral in Loughrea (Clonfert) is supposed to be magnificent but I've never actually seen it. St. Audoen's in Dublin is a fine classical building; in general renovations are more damaging to Gothic churches because they go against the spirit of the building; classical churches have a certain intrinsic bareness/simplicity.
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Aug 20, 2009 8:45:04 GMT
Christ the King cathedral in Mullingar was also comparatively untouched and still glorious.
In Dublin, I think John's Lane (Augustinian and neo-gothic), Gardiner St (Jesuit and neo-baroque) and University Church (neo-byzantine) all more or less preserve their older characters
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 20, 2009 10:51:53 GMT
The Capuchin church in Cork is a handsome piece of neo-Byzantine architecture with some very nice mosaics. I particularly like the Pantocrator on the ceiling above the main altar. Perhaps I'm biased as I have a long association with that church. In the same city, St. Mary's on Pope's Quay is a nice example of a Dominican church which has not been wreckovated (or only minimally so). They have a nice carved-stone pulpit and the shrine of Our Lady of Youghal (a small late mediaeval statue preserved in Penal Days). A handsome classical design. I remember hearing that in the early nineteenth century the Church of Ireland was quicker to take up Gothic that the Catholic church, which preferred the classical style because of its association with the Roman churches. This changed in the later C19; the Gothic Revival and particularly the influence of Pugin made Gothic churches very popular among Catholics, while the C of I grew suspicious of them as crypto-papist.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Aug 24, 2009 11:43:07 GMT
St Peter's Church in Drogheda which is the home of the relics of St Oliver Plunkett is a very beautiful Neo-gothic church. Across the Boyne in the Meath diocese is St Mary's which is likewise very beautiful. Both have been done with minimal changes.
To return to the Armagh Archdiocese, St Patrick's Church, Dundalk (called Cathedral by the locals) is another beautiful neo-gothic.
For a North Leinster neo-classical, St Mary's in Navan strikes me as a good example. Within the Meath diocese, an example of a good job done on a church in recent years is the parish church of Kentstown in Co. Meath (just off the N2, not far from Slane or Navan). The priest responsible was Father David O'Hanlon. This is a simple early 19th century neo-classical church.
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 22, 2009 10:42:47 GMT
In discussing Cork, how could I have forgotten St. Peter and Paul's, just off Patrick Street in the city centre, now the home of the weekly EF Mass. A magnificent example of Victorian Gothic (Pugin the Younger was architect) with splendid wood-carving.
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 23, 2009 16:12:15 GMT
The Poor Clares chapel in Newry also is quite nice and simple -pity the place is closing soon. I believe it was a theatre in the early nineteenth century. A nice neo-classical design. Margaret Cusack (the Nun of Kenmare) has some interesting material on the convent's early history in her life of Abbess Mary O'Hagan. Sad that so much effort should end like this, but it is stored up in heaven. One feature I haven't seen elsewhere is a sort of plaster stud in the ceiling above the altar with a gold-coloured plaster dove descending - a nice piece of Eucharistic symbolism. The marble angels on the tabernacle look a bit like John Hogan's work - I wonder might they be his? {PS I got another look at it before it closed. It was actually Strawberry Hill Gothic rather than classical - i.e. box-like classical design with some Gothic plaster decorations, but not the basic Gothic structure.)
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 21, 2010 11:34:35 GMT
As I contemplate the rather bare modern church where I worship regularly, I find myself wondering whether Pugin might have been onto something when he argued that Gothis was the best Christian architecture - that it draws the mind upward towards mysteries beyond our reach, whereas neo-classical plainness tends towards banality. Any thoughts?
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Post by Michael O'Donovan on Feb 5, 2010 22:16:46 GMT
I was in the Holy Rosary church in Greystones last week for the first time, for a funeral. Beautiful church, with a sanctuary in the rotunda form like the one in Rathgar. Perfect for the EF.
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 19, 2010 12:44:23 GMT
Here's an oddity. I was in St. Peter and Paul's in Cork recently and I noticed that near the door they have some small windows showing angels, one of which is labelled "Saint Uriel". In Jewish tradition Uriel is one of the major angels, along with Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, but because he is not mentioned by name in Scripture it is unusual to find him in church art, and in recent decades he has been taken up by various dotty 'New Agers'. The window looked twentieth-century in style but not very recent (it was quite clearly figurative and I must say very handsome). Does anyone know how it came to be there and whether Uriel makes appearances elsewhere in Irish Church art?
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 8, 2010 14:38:28 GMT
It seems from this that there is a tradition of liturgical commemoration of Uriel in the Anglican and Orthodox Churches, but I still wonder how he got into St. Peter and Paul's. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uriel
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 9, 2010 15:31:49 GMT
St. Patrick's in Dungannon where they had the indult Mass on Saturday 6th is a handsome Gothic church. Unfortunately the high altar and alter rails have been removed, but the backing (with some handsome sculpture) and the side altar are still there. There seems to have been an attempt to have an overall scheme for the stained glass (mainly Irish saints, though there is a fine window of Margaret Mary Alacocque and the Sacred Heart). There is a nice window commemorating saints Patrick , celsus (Cellach) and Malachy, to mark the armagh archdiocese connection. A couple of recent stained-glass windows marking the connection of the Presentation Brothers and Mercy Sisters with the town are also good - they have good colours and a sort of sculpted quality about the forms, not like those slightly anaemic semi-abstracts in St. Teresa's Carmelite church in Dublin and st. Brigid's in Belfast. (Not that these are bad in themselves, but I think it is good to have objects for reverence that are solid and not too subjective.)
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Mar 15, 2010 12:42:47 GMT
I was in St Malachy's in Belfast recently which re-opened after a restoration. It is a good example of what can be achieved where there is a will to do it. In this case the altar rails were restored and in some cases they had to be re-created. The church is beautiful.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 15, 2010 17:46:21 GMT
Yes, St. Malachy's is a nice example of Strawberry Hill Gothic. The interior has a somewhat squashed shape (like a rectangle with the altar on one of the long sides) which is probably due to space constraints when it was put up in the mid-nineteenth century. I've only been in there once since the restoration, but it struck me as being nicely cleaned up and pretty sensitively done. BTW St. Malachy's was on the frontline in the 1850s Belfast riots (it was on the outskirts of the city then and the Markets area which it serves was being built up).
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 8, 2010 15:20:01 GMT
I was in Lusk recently and St MacCulinn's church is a little Celtic Revival gem - the altar rails are still in place, it has what look like Harry Clarke windows, and the whole thing seems to be modelled on Cormac's Chapel. I remarked to someone that this seemed to be an exception to the rule that churches dedicated to obscure local saints are usually Church of Ireland (because they inherited the mediaeval parish system) and was told it was originally Church of Ireland but was later acquired by the Catholic Church!
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