The Leaning Tower

Jan11

Do not attempt to adjust your screens: the tilt is real. This is the 10^th century round tower in Kilmacduagh, County Galway, at some 111 feet the tallest such structure in the world. The conical cap, which unusually overhangs the drum, collapsed in 1858 and was rebuilt almost twenty years later. The tower has a circumference of fifty-six feet and walls six and a half feet thick. In addition, Kilmacduagh’s round tower has the greatest number of windows – eleven, all angle-headed – and a doorway almost twenty-three feet above the ground, leading to questions about how anyone ever gained access: the height is too great for a solid ladder and the alternative would be a rope ladder of exceptional length. But most extraordinary of all, the tower leans over a foot and a half to the south-west.

At the start of the 7th century Colman MacDuagh who had hitherto been living as a hermit on the Burren, was persuaded by his cousin Guaire Aidne mac Colmáin, King of Connacht to establish a monastery in this part of the country. Legend has it that while Colman was walking through woods in the area seeking a spot for the new foundation, his girdle fell to the ground. Taking this as a divine omen he chose the place for his monastery. The girdle is said to have been studded with gems and kept for centuries by the O’Shaughnessys, descendants of King Guaire, and then by another branch of the family the O’Heynes. It has long since disappeared but an additional item associated with Colman, his supposed crozier (although likely of later manufacture) which was credited with the power to make a thief restore stolen items, is now in the National Museum of Ireland.

The fame of Saint Colman (as he became after his death in 632) attracted many followers and the monastery at Kilmacduagh thrived for several centuries. Indeed such was its importance that in the 12^th century Kilmacduagh became the centre of a new diocese (subsequently merged with Galway). However like so many such establishments in Ireland it was subject to frequent attacks. The buildings were plundered several times before finally being devastated at the start of the 13^th century by the Norman knight William de Burgh during his conquest of Connacht. At some date before his death in 1253 Owen O’Heyne founded the nearby house of St Mary de Petra for Augustinian canons. They remained here until the Dissolution of the monasteries in the 16^th century after which the lands of Kilmacduagh were granted to the Richard Burke, second Earl of Clanricarde, a descendant of William de Burgh. Today the remains of sundry buildings from different dates can be found on the site including the cathedral, the friary of St Mary de Petra, churches dedicated to John the Baptist and the Virgin and the former glebe house as well as the world’s tallest, and only leaning, round tower.

An Active Afterlife

Jan6

The west entrance to the 12th century church at Ullard, County Kilkenny, its much-weathered Romanesque doorway featuring the outline of human and animal heads. It was directly facing this entrance that Jeremy Williams was interred last Saturday following a service at nearby Duiske Abbey. Everyone interested in Ireland’s built heritage will have known Jeremy, architect, author and superlative draughtsman, a constant presence at meetings, outings and social gatherings. Always full of enthusiasm, always embarking on a fresh project, always determinedly encouraging others to share his current passion, there were no houses in Ireland where he was not assured of a welcome: and little of the country’s architectural patrimony that he hadn’t nimbly recorded with his pen. His sudden death on Christmas Eve has left a void impossible to fill. Impossible also to imagine Jeremy resting in peace: one imagines that already he is persuading the Almighty to cast an eye over freshly-drafted plans for the refurbishment of Heaven’s Gates.

A Very Conspicuous Object

Dec28

In early February 1779 the church at Coolbanagher, County Laois, an old building of rough stone with straw-thatched roof, was maliciously set on fire and reduced to ruin. That same year the Hon John Dawson succeeded his father as second Viscount Carlow (he would be created first Earl of Portarlington in 1785). A man of considerable cultural interests, Lord Carlow played a key role in encouraging James Gandon to come to Ireland. When the English architect did so in 1781 he was duly invited to his patron’s country residence, Dawson Court which lay close by Coolbanagher: Lady Carlow’s correspondence records Gandon being with the family over Christmas 1781, together with the local rector, her brother-in-law the Rev. William Dawson. The following spring work began on a new church at Coolbanagher, designed by Gandon. Work progressed relatively slowly. In November 1783 Lord Carlow wrote to his wife, then in London, ‘The church has been neglected but now gets on apace, and I believe I shall have the whole body of it fit for roofing before the winter sets in. I shall not, however, put on the roof till spring.’ A month later, he advised her, ‘I have concluded my work at the church for this season. It will make a very conspicuous object to the new house and to the whole province of Leinster.’ Further time passed before Lady Carlow wrote in March 1785 to her sister, a regular correspondent, ‘We are going to have great doings here next week. The new church is to be consecrated on Tuesday; the Bishop and all the clergy in the neighbourhood are to attend, besides all the country, I suppose, and Lord Carlow will ask them all to dinner both on that day and on the next, as there are races within three miles of us. I own I am sorry to begin with this sort of work so soon, but there is no help for it.’ Shortly afterwards Gandon also designed a mausoleum for his patron and this lies to the immediate south of the building (see Preparing for the End last Wednesday, December 23^rd).

During a visit to Ireland in 1792 the English judge George Hardinge visited this part of the country and observed that Lord Carlow ‘has just built a most beautiful Church for his Parish upon his own Architecture and Wyatt himself might own it with pride as a work of his.’ Despite this mis-attribution, the church of St John the Evangelist in Coolbanagher has long been judged Gandon’s work, not least because a number of preparatory sketches from his hand survive which appear to show the evolution of ideas for the building. The initial concept suggests the entire church was intended as a kind of mausoleum, with a sarcophagus altar at the east end. This scheme was abandoned (and the more modest Portarlington Mausoleum erected immediately outside the building) and instead one adopted not unlike the courthouse concourse Gandon had designed for Nottingham a decade earlier. Everything from vestibule to vestry is contained within a single compact space, with the nave measuring a neat thirty feet wide by sixty feet long. This chamber is divided into three compartments articulated by alternate piers and niches, the former being carried up and across the barrel vaulted ceiling. Light is provided by Diocletian windows on the upper walls, these flanked by draped medallions. An arched and bow-fronted gallery at the west end was supported on slender Doric columns while presumably the altar table stood below a similar arch to the east. As Edward McParland has commented, stripped of all superfluous ornament, ‘when Coolbanagher was consecrated in 1785, there was no more nobly simple nor any more calmly grand church in the country.’ A view of the interior attributed to James Malton shows the building as Gandon intended (see above, the three figures in the foreground are supposed to represent the architect, Lord Carlow and the Rev. William Dawson).

Visitors to Coolbanagher church can still gain a sense of Gandon’s design, although this has since been the subject of some alteration. During the 19^th century evangelical revival, the building must have seemed rather too pagan in character: more Roman bath (those Diocletian windows) than place of Christian worship. There also appear to have been problems with the roof, since it had to be repaired in 1822 and again in 1827. Radical alteration occurred in 1865 when, working on plans commissioned from Thomas Drew, a decision was taken by the rector and vestry to create an enlarged semi-circular chancel accessed by railings and containing a pulpit, reading desk and altar; the arch was given some gothic-spirited carvings presumably at the same date. Out too went the theatre-box gallery, and the old box pews, supposedly ‘to afford increased accommodation in the Church, so as to leave the aisle clear – which is at present inconveniently crowded.’ Finally the barrel ceiling went for good, replaced by the present pitched roof with exposed wood beams. More recently and reverting to the site’s original spirit, the late Major Cholmeley-Harrison commissioned urns (which were designed by Gandon but may never have been made) to be placed in the nave niches. Today the building represents a clash of cultures (not helped by the present colour scheme) in which Enlightenment idealism does battle with religious dogma, neither emerging victorious. Even so, Coolbanagher church remains, as Lord Carlow intended, a ‘very conspicuous object’ to the whole province of Leinster, if not to the entire country.

Seasonal Greetings

Dec25

Looking across the river Boyne, a view of Donaghpatrick parish church, County Meath. On an ancient site (as the name implies, the original church is said to have been founded by St Patrick), the building was extensively reconstructed in the 1860s by architect James Franklin Fuller but still incorporates a mediaeval tower. To the right can be seen the charming parish hall of 1890.
The Irish Aesthete wishes all friends and followers a very Happy Christmas.

Preparing for the End

Dec23

On the south side of the chancel wall at the church of St John the Evangelist, Coolbanagher, County Laois: the Portarlington Mausoleum. Like the main building, this was designed by James Gandon for John Dawson, second Viscount Carlow, and from 1785 first Earl of Portarlington, a notable patron of the architect. The mausoleum carries the date 1788 but Lord Portarlington did not die until a decade later. An instance of being well prepared for when the end comes…
More on Coolbanagher and its church on Monday.

The Traveller’s Rest

Dec14

The Irish saint Brendan of Clonfert, otherwise known as Brendan the Voyager, is believed to have been born around 484 near what is now Tralee in County Kerry. Following his baptism, he spent five years studying under St Ita, ‘the St Brigid of Munster’ before being ordained a priest by St Erc in 512. Between that date and 530 he travelled around Ireland preaching, and established monastic foundations at Ardfert and in Shanakeel at the foot of Mount Brandon. He also began to undertake longer journeys, visiting the Arran Islands where he founded another monastery, Brittany and, it is related, Hinba an island of now unknown location off the Scottish mainland where he met St Columcille. His legendary longer boat journey is discussed below, but supposedly on returning from this Brendan was still restless and accordingly went to Wales, and thence to Iona and several other places. After three years’ missionary work in Britain he returned to Ireland, and spent time in the province of Leinster. Thence to Connaught where he founded yet another monastery in Annaghdown, as well as a convent for his sister Briga: here he died in 577. However, concerned lest followers would try to keep his remains, he arranged before death that his corpse be secretly carried away concealed in a luggage cart. He was subsequently buried at Clonfert, County Galway, another religious house he had founded.

St Brendan is known as ‘the Voyager’ owing to a journey he is said to have made with a number of companions, one that took seven years and brought them across the Atlantic to the shores of North America. References to an account of this voyage occur as early as the ninth century although extant texts of the Navigatio sancti Brendani abbatis (Voyage of St Brendan the Abbot) are somewhat later. These describe the journey in considerable detail, outlining how the saint and his intrepid fellow passengers construct a vessel not unlike the Irish curragh (otherwise known as a coracle) and after forty days of prayer and fasting set off in search of a promised land. En route they experience a series of adventures: on one occasion the boat was ‘raised up on the back of sea monsters’, while the group are also recorded as passing by ‘crystals that rose up to the sky’ and being ‘pelted with flaming, foul smelling rocks by the inhabitants of a large island on their route.’ Finally they reached a beautiful land they named the Promised Land of the Saints. After exploring this as far as a great river that divided the land they turned back and slowly returned to Ireland. The Navigatio was well-known in the Middle Ages and cartographers of the period in their attempts to map the world included a place called ‘St Brendan’s Island.’ Following the voyages of Columbus and other seafarers, the story of St Brendan lost veracity, but almost forty years ago in 1976 the explorer Tim Severin determined to see whether such a passage across the Atlantic was feasible. Having constructed a replica of the boat described in the Navigatio, he likewise set off and over the course of more than a year underwent not dissimilar trials before arriving at Newfoundland. Along the way, he and his crew saw icebergs (‘crystals that rose up in the sky’), the volcanoes of Iceland (‘flaming, fold smelling rocks’) and whales (‘sea monsters’), thereby demonstrating the story of St Brendan’s journey to North America was not so fanciful after all.

Such was the fame of St Brendan that the monastery he founded and where he was buried at Clonfert soon became a place of pilgrimage and a centre of study under the authority of an abbot-bishop: at one time, it is claimed, the resident population of monks numbered some three thousand. None of the buildings in which they would have worked and lived now survives. Like many other religious settlements, wealthy but vulnerable, Clonfert was subject to regular attack first by the Vikings and then by Irish chiefs. Nevertheless it continued to thrive: in 1392 the Bishop of Clonfert paid three hundred florins to the Papal Treasury on his appointment, compared to the two hundred florins expected of the Archbishop of Tuam. Following the suppression of the monasteries in the 16^th centuries, the cathedral church was retained for worship by the Anglican community (as is still the case) but it has since much shrunk in size and now measures just fifty-four by twenty-seven feet; the Romanesque north transept is in ruins and a Gothic south transept entirely gone. What remains is an enchantment. Inside the building, the most notable feature are the early 13^th century east windows and the limestone chancel arch inserted in the 15^th century, the latter decorated with various figures including angels and a mermaid holding a mirror. The glory of Clonfert Cathedral is its late 12^th century west door, often considered the finest example of Hiberno-Romanesque workmanship extant. Of sandstone, it is in six orders and is densely carved with an extraordinary selection of motifs including foliage, and animal and human heads: the innermost order was added in similar style in the 15^th century. Above the doorway, a triangular hood has ten human masks enclosed within small triangles which alternate with other small triangles. Below is a blind arcade of five arches each of which has a human head within it. A wonderful survivor in a part of the midlands of Ireland now little visited, the doorway of Clonfert Cathedral, like the Navigatio sancti Brendani abbatis, serves as testimony to the imagination of the Irish people more than a millennium ago.

Made Better By Their Presents II

Dec12

Although the Board of First Fruits is no longer much remembered, for more than a century it was an important organization in this country. Established in 1711 during the reign of Queen Anne, the board was devised to provide financial assistance for the building and improvement of the Church of Ireland’s places of worship and glebe houses. Initially funded by a tax on clerical incomes, from 1778 onwards the body benefitted from grants given by the Irish Parliament, the amount varying until 1785 after which it received an annual sum of £5,000. Following the abolition of the country’s parliament in 1800, just as Ireland’s elected representatives were more closely bound to their English equivalents, so too were Irish Anglican clergy, thanks to the creation of the United Church of England and Ireland. One consequence of this merger was a substantial increase in money available to the Board of First Fruits: its annual grant doubled to £10,000 in 1808 and then climbed to a remarkable £60,000 between 1810-26 before dropping first to £30,000 and then £10,000 after 1822. This largesse led to a massive building boom, with almost 700 churches either constructed or renovated, as well as 550 glebes and 172 schoolhouses. Of course the Church of Ireland population was never large (just over 10 per cent in the 1831 census) and has steadily declined (today it is less than three per cent), rendering increasing numbers of these buildings surplus to need. Over the past century, parishes have been amalgamated and properties let go, with many churches falling into dereliction. Readers may already be familiar with photographer Tarquin Blake’s previous books including two featuring Abandoned Mansions of Ireland. Now he has produced a new volume Abandoned Churches of Ireland, which contains accounts of 82 properties spread across twenty-five counties. In varying stages of decline, they represent the Church of Ireland’s history from dominant faith – in authority if not in numbers – to minority denomination. Blake’s pictures and text eloquently tell the story of churches like that at Burnchurch, County Kilkenny (seen above and below), its present form dating from 1810 when the Board of First Fruits provided the parish with a grant and loan for this purpose. Built on the site of an older church, it remained in use until 1961 and is now a roofless shell.

Abandoned Churches of Ireland by Tarquin Blake is published by Collins Press (€27.99).

Made Better by their Presents I

Dec5

The Romanesque west doorway of St Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, founded by Donal Mór O’Brian, King of munster in 1168 but said to incorporate elements of an older palace on the same site. This is one of a number of such buildings considered in Niamh NicGhabhann’s recently published Medieval Ecclesiastical Buildings in Ireland, 1178-1915. The fascinating text explores changing attitudes to gothic architecture during the period, and increased academic interest in the subject as antiquarians like George Wilkinson and George Petrie carried out detailed surveys of old monuments. Equally interesting is how over the course of the 19th century Ireland’s built heritage became politicised, with debate focussed on what elements might be judged ‘authentically’ Irish and what foreign imports. As NicGhabhann writes, ‘In Ireland, debates on the meaning of architectural style were complicated by issues of religious identity, as well as by ideas of political symbolism and national representation.’ If not necessarily in the field of gothic architecture, these debates continue to resonate in some quarters to the present day. They became immediately applicable in Limerick when work on a new Roman Catholic cathedral, designed by Philip Charles Hardwicke, began in 1856: this stands in the area known since the Middle Ages as ‘Irishtown’ whereas St Mary’s is on King’s Island, otherwise known as ‘Englishtown.’ ‘The public and religious celebrations surrounding the consecration of St John’s Cathedral,’ writes NicGhabhann of this event in 1894, ‘can be read as a performance of both Catholic identity within the city, and the negotiation between the religious and political significance of the two cathedrals.’ That negotiation could be fractious, not least in Dublin where the Church of Ireland had possession of the capital’s two ancient gothic cathedrals, and the Catholic church had to settle for a neo-Catholic Pro-Cathedral. The choir of one of the former, St Patrick’s Cathedral , can be seen below. The building underwent a controversial ‘restoration’ in the 1860s, since Sir Benjamin Guinness, who funded the entire enterprise, chose to dispense with the services of an architect.

Medieval Ecclesiastical Buildings in Ireland, 1789-1915: Building on the Past by Niamh NicGhabhann is published by Four Courts Press, €55.

Being in the Service of the Lord

Nov23

As was mentioned last week Kilcooley, County Tipperary stands on land formerly settled by Cistercian monks. The order established a house here c.1182 at the request of Donal Mór O’Brien, King of Thomond and a thrice-great grandson of Brian Boru. It was one of no less than four Cistercian monasteries initiated by O’Brien and soon became a daughter house of Jerpoint Abbey, County Kilkenny, established a couple of years earlier. Like so many other such properties, Kilcooley was subject to attack, especially during the fifteenth century when many religious establishments became caught up in feuds between rival families. Having already suffered from an assault in 1418, in 1445 it was reported the abbey had been burnt and almost completely destroyed by ‘armed men.’ This led to the construction of the present church, albeit largely on the footprint of its predecessor. The work was carried out under the direction of then-abbot Philip O’Mulwanayn whose burial slab was formerly sited in front of the main altar but is now suspended on the north wall of the chancel.

Access to Kilcooley Abbey is via a well-preserved entrance chamber, in effect the church’s north transept, composed of two bays the outer having a handsome traceried window on the east wall. The inner bay has retained its stone vaulting and to the south stands a carved stone baptismal font. One then enters the church, notable for flamboyant tracery windows at the east and west ends. The main body of the building has lost its roof but this remains over the oblong crossing which supports a hefty tower, and over the chancel. To the south a narrower two-bay, rib-vaulted transept – serving as a pair of small chapels – in turn leads to a succession of other rooms, as well as offering access to the night stairs, and to the cloister garth beyond: almost nothing of the last of these now remains other than outer walls. Several other buildings in the vicinity, such as chapter house and refectory, survive in various states of ruin.

The interior of Kilcooley is memorable for two features: the chancel tombs and the doorway leading from south transept to sacristy. With regard to the former, the finest tomb here is that against the chancel’s north wall erected in memory of Piers Fitzjames Oge Butler who died in 1526. This work is attributed to Rory O’Tunney, member of a County Kilkenny family responsible for carving a number of such tombs during the first half of the 16^th century. Butler’s monument features the deceased lying on top of the tomb clad in a mixture of chain and plate armour and with a loyal dog at his feet. Below him runs an elaborate panel featuring ten apostles, each in his own niche. Passing through the south transept, one is confronted by a remarkable carved screen carrying a number of images seemingly scattered at random and on sundry dates. Yet as Roger Stalley has noted (in The Cistercian Monasteries of Ireland, 1987) ‘this cannot be so as the stones have all been carefully cut to suit their present positions.’ However the impression of an ad hoc design remains: two tracery panels beneath the arch, for example, are smaller than their neighbours. Further down, panels are placed with no evident concern for their location. One shows a mermaid with comb and mirror being observed by two fish, another has an abbot inside an ogee arch, but not to the centre of it. A crucifixion scene above the door is likewise off-centre, sharing the space with St Christopher carrying the Christ child. The whole design appears simultaneously wilful and whimsical.

Likely because of its links with the Butler family, following the Dissolution of the Monasteries Kilcooley became the property of the Earls of Ormonde. In 1636 the twelfth earl (and future first Duke of Ormonde) sold the estate to Norfolk-born judge Sir Jerome Alexander for £4,200. On his death in 1670, Kilcooley was inherited by his daughter Elizabeth who married another English-born lawyer, William Barker. In 1676 he became the first of four successive baronets bearing the same name, the last of whom built a new house on the estate around 1770. Prior to that date the Barkers may not have spent much time at Kilcooley and when they were present they lived in the old abbey which had been modified to serve as a private residence: this helps to explain why it is better preserved than many other mediaeval monasteries in Ireland. Following the death without direct heir of the last Sir William Barker in 1818 the estate was inherited by his nephew, Chambre Brabazon Ponsonby on condition he adopted the surname Barker. When he in turn died in 1834 Kilcooley passed to his eldest son, William Ponsonby-Barker some of whose idiosyncrasies were discussed last week. Again he died without leaving a son, so the next owner was his brother, Captain Thomas Ponsonby, known as ‘Damnation Tom’ owing to his habit of using the expletive in every sentence. But he only lived a further three years before dying in 1880. His son Chambre Brabazon Ponsonby, married to Mary Plunkett, sister of Sir Horace Plunkett, went to the United States with the intention of buying land there and selling Kilcooley, but died during his return journey across the Atlantic in 1884. The estate passed to six-year old Thomas Brabazon Ponsonby, whose guardian was the aforementioned Horace Plunkett, pioneer of agricultural cooperatives in Ireland. Imbued with his uncle’s idealism, Thomas Ponsonby was a progressive farmer, establishing many new enterprises on the estate including a cheese factory, a large pig enterprise and saw mills. Narrow gauge railway lines served the pigs, and this line extended to a hill where timber was felled and loaded onto bogies which would roll downhill to the saw mill. Likewise he and his wife Frances Paynter modernized the main house, with central heating installed throughout the building including the basement, the whole fired by a large coal boiler below ground in the north yard, and the water circulated by thermo-syphon. The boiler house had a glass roof, so that if there was an explosion, the force of the blast would go straight up.
Kilcooley remained in the ownership of the Ponsonbys until some ten years ago, since when it has experienced what could best be described as mixed fortunes in various hand. It recently came on the market at the centre of an estate running to more than 1,200 acres. Given its fascinating history and exceptional collection of buildings – of which not all have been described here – one can only hope that it soon finds a new custodian, one who proves as sympathetic to the place as were the Ponsonbys.

À la française

Nov14

The remains of the former Franciscan Friary in Waterford City. It is believed to have been founded c.1241 by Sir Hugh Purcell (the belltower with its stepped battlements was added in the late 15th century) and remained in use for its original purpose for three centuries until the time of the Reformation. The site was subsequently granted by Henry VIII to a local merchant, Henry Walsh with a charter to convert part of it into an almshouse. This building has long been known as the French Church, having been used by Huguenots after they settled in Waterford towards the end of the 17th century.

It is entirely coincidental that today’s post – written a fortnight ago – should have a French theme. But the atrocities in Paris last night emphasise more than ever how we all have a duty to cherish our shared European heritage.

The Irish Aesthete

This is not an Oxymoron

Category Archives: Irish Church