Category Archives: Stained Glass

The New World in the Old



The Roman Catholic St Joseph’s church in Valleymount, County Wicklow originally dates from 1803 but its granite facade and porch were added around 1835. With pilasters rising above the level parapet to piers topped with slender decorative pinnacles, it is claimed that the porch was either designed by a local priest inspired by churches he had seen on a visit to Malta, or was constructed by parishioners who had visited New Mexico (now Texas). Only the deadening expanse of tarmacadam around the building would remind visitors that they were in Ireland. Inside, the side aisles hold a two pairs of bejewelled stained glass windows from the Harry Clarke studios, installed in the 1930s.





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In Anticipation…


In anticipation of next Monday, here is one of the windows found in St Manchan’s, Boher, County Offaly. This little church takes its name from a local saint and houses a 12th century reliquary, St Manchan’s Shrine, believed to have held his bones (alas, for unexplained reasons the shrine was not on view during a recent visit). But the building also has a series of five splendid stained glass windows commissioned in 1930 from the pre-eminent artist then working in the medium, Harry Clarke. This one shows St Anne, traditionally held to be the Virgin’s mother, with her young daughter, in turn the mother of Christ. 

Off with His Head


A stained glass window in the chancel of St John the Baptist, Duhill, County Tipperary. It is one of two designed and made by Harry Clarke for this little parish church. That to the left of the altar depicts a rather insipid Bernadette receiving a vision of the Virgin at Lourdes. In contrast that on the right-hand side is altogether more earthy (and more gorgeously coloured) and, inspired by the saint to whom the building is dedicated, shows the moment after his death when Salome beholds the newly-executed John’s head on a salver, observed by Herod and Herodias. Dating from 1925, the window commemorates local woman Margaret Byrne and her two brothers, both of whom had been priests..