Kieran’s Our City, Our Town article, Cork Independent

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 215)

Through the Stained Glass

The stained glass window seems to not only remember Arthur Lionel Tobin of Ballincollig and his tragic death in action in India but also connects to other places and worlds of thinking. The stained glass window holds the threads in a sense of other stories as well – people, conflicts, plots, and metaphors across spatial and temporal boundaries. Here seems to be a coloured world that provokes the imagination.

The window connects to a biblical literature. The window depicts morals – indeed perhaps a view of a world that spans time and space. The three figures are contained with a gothic frame – two of the images contain significant actions – the taking of a winged dragon from a castle and the third holding a sword. Reading up about temperance in the context of the bible, it involves action is self-preservation. Virtues aligned with temperance tend to include abstinence, sobriety, chastity, purity, continence, humility, gentleness, clemency, modesty and lack of greed. The virtue of fortitude enables a person to stand firm against and endure the hardships of life and to remain steadfast in pursuit of what is good.

The window In St Peter’s Church, Carrigrohane was executed by Henry Holiday and W.G Saunders, two major figures in stained glass art of the nineteenth century. London man, Henry Holiday was an English historical genre and landscape painter, stained glass designer, illustrator and sculptor. He is considered to be a member of the Pre-Raphaelite school of art. In particular he spent alot of time in the Lake District. He spent much of his time sketching the views which were to be seen from the various hills and mountains.

In 1861, Henry Holiday (1839 –1927) accepted the job of stained glass window designer for Powell’s Glass Works in Whitefriars in North Yorkshire. Interestingly he took over after Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones had left to work for Morris & Co. Sir Edward was an eminent British artist and designer. He was closely involved in the rejuvenation of the tradition of stained glass art in England. Henry Holiday was a frequent visitor to the studios of Sir Edward Burne-Jones at his home in London and Sir Edward’s influence on him is said to be felt in his work.

Powell’s Glass Works made stained glass windows and by 1854 the firm were experimenting with the chemical mixes to achieve medieval coloured glass for Charles Winston, an authority in cathedral and church window restoration. Through his recommendation Powell was supplying Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones with stained glass muff with the right mix of air bubbles and brilliant natural colours to match medieval glass. Soon Powell Glass Works was commissioning cartoons from Edward Burne-Jones, Henry Holiday, Anning Bell, Edward Poynter, Ford Maddox Brown and George Cattermole.

Henry Holiday in his time at Powell’s fulfilled over 300 commissions, mostly for customers in the USA. It was in the early stage of his move to Powell’s, that he was engaged in the design of St Peter’s Carrigrohane. Henry Holiday left in 1891 to set up his own glass works in Hampstead, producing stained glass, mosaics, enamels and sacerdotal objects. Apart from Carrigrohane, Holiday’s stained glass work can be found all over Britain but some of his best is at Westminster Abbey (the Isambard Kingdom Brunel memorial window, 1868), St. Luke’s church in Kentish Town and St. Mary Magdalene in Paddington (1869). Henry Holiday was also involved in illustrating Lewis Carroll’s ‘The Hunting of the Snark’, and the first edition of ‘Through the Looking Glass’.

W. Gualbert Saunders (1837-1923) appears as a pupil of William Burges in 1865 and made furniture and tiles for him but the association was based on the supply of stained glass.  Saunders was briefly associated with Henry Holiday in the 1860s He started his own manufactory in 1869 and made stained glass for the Gothic Revival architect William Burges in the 1870s. Saunders employed designers such as eminent stained glass artist Christopher Whitworth Whall and Horatio Walter Lonsdale, an architectural artist.

It is possible that Dr Henry T.M. Hodder sought out artists such as Henry Holiday and W.G. Saunders to carry out the wishes of the Tobin Family. On the death of Dr. Hodder in 1864, Rev. Robert Samuel Gregg (1834–1896) became the next precentor. Gregg was originally from Belfast and was educated in Trinity College Dublin from which he attained an MA in 1860. He was incumbent of Christ Church, Belfast for a time. He became rector of Frankland and chaplain to John Gregg as bishop of Cork, 1862.

In 1865, John Gregg became rector of Carrigrohane and preceptor of St. Finbarre’s Cathedral, Cork. He received his doctorate from Trinity College Dublin in 1873 and in 1874 became Dean of Cork. During his time at St. Finbarre’s Cathedral, he would have overseen the work of William Burges who was designing and with a team building a new cathedral. Subsequently in 1875, John became bishop of Ossory, Ferns, and Leighlin and Bishop of Cork in 1878. He later became archbishop of Armagh in 1893. In 1866-7, Rev. Gregg invested in a new annexe to the body of St. Peter’s Church after plans by William Burges.

To be continued…

Captions:

543a. Windows in William Burges’ designed annexe, built c.1866, St. Peter’s Church, Carrigrohane (pictures: Kieran McCarthy)

543b. Close up of ‘fortitude’- stained glass window

Kieran’s book launch of Inheritance: Heritage and Memory in the Lee Valley

My thanks to Margaret Griffin of Griffin’s Garden Centre for hosting the event, Dripsey Community Association for their help in organising the event, Cllr John Kelleher, deputising for the Lord Mayor, who launched it and everyone who came out to support the launch.

 About the book: http://kieranmccarthy.ie/?p=2415

 sales: http://www.thehistorypress.ie/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=493

Pictures of the great night below!

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town article, Cork Independent

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 213)

Humanising History

The late nineteenth century structure of St. Peter’s Church Carrigrohane sits atop Church Road Hill in Carrigrohane and within a quietness overlooking in particular the western fringes of Bishopstown, Cork City. For me I delight in walking across such spaces. There is also a kind of magical feel about such places.

In St Peter’s Church graveyard, the rusted Victorian chains around some graves reveal the forgotten traditions of minding the dead in Victorian times. Similarly, the multiple headstones now lean to one and have lost their foothold in the landscape and maybe in memory too as the names and dates fade on the stone. It’s seems easy to romanticise such a place but as I sit on the grass in the graveyard snapping pictures I do think of all the people buried here and the various centuries represented and perhaps some events they might have seen in their lives and all those people who make a regular pilgrimage to them.

Brady in his 1863 book on the churches of County Cork  reveal a deeper legacy than the nineteenth century building. In fact, there have been people walking across this space for over 700 years. A parish church is mentioned in Carrigrohane in the year 1291 and is rated at four marks. It probably complimented the nearby De Cogan Castle at Carrigrohane. The De Cogans were of Anglo-Normans descent and had been involved in constructing the walled town of Cork and possessed much land in the Cork area.

Through reading up more on the idea of a sacred place and why people engage with churches and religion, I was interested to read up on a number of points. These books brought me to pilgrimage practices in Ireland, Italy, and Japan. There is an argument by pilgrimage scholars that at churches that a sense of place is forged on the edge of the real and heavenly world, the known and invisible world – that the divine presence was real and accessible –that that the divine could be seen and touched. In addition to become conscious of the sacred and the powerful sense of mystery people carry and display a whole series of personal emotions. The human experience conjures up multiple feelings-of belief, faith, hope, expectation, motivation, intellectual inspiration and inquisitiveness, all in a search for forgiveness and an epiphany. I think these are very relevant points and perhaps humanise the experience of the heritage of religion as well. That is not just the facts, structure, artefacts, oral histories that need minding but also the traits that perhaps bind the human condition together.

Sometimes, I also forget about the human side of minding and making churches relevant to people in today’s world- the level that someone had to take over the building, and make the building meaningful to a community and  be a leader.  

Very little is known of the leaders in the first three hundred years of the history of St. Peter’s Church. It is only in the turbulent years of King Henry VIII when one gets further information through the survey work he pursued of churches in Britain and Ireland. In 1543, William Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, Chaplain, was appointed precentor by the crown. The position was vacant and at the King’s disposal. The previous incumbent is noted as of Irish descent.A precentor is a person who helps facilitate worship.

By the year 1582, John Gould was precentor in Carrigrohane. In the year 1591, Dionisius Cambell appears as Precentor. Cambell was from Scotland and had been Archdeacon and subsequently Dean of Limerick. He was rector in Dromclifee in Killaloe and in the year 1588 was appointed coadjutor Bishop of Limerick. In 1591, he came to Carrigrohane. In the year 1603 he was nominated to the sees of Derry, Raphoe and Clogher. Unfortunately he died before his consecration in London in 1603. By 1612 John Alden is in place as precentor in Carrigrohane. He eventually moved on to Clonmel and Israel Taylor took over. In 1615, a curate Richard Allen was also provided for. A this time also, the chancel of the church was in ruins and had to be replaced. The structure held about 70 people.

In 1641, Israel Taylor’s property at Carrigrohane amounting to £680 was taken from him due to the mounting political situation in Ireland and protests from the Protestant class about their rights within Ireland. In post Cromwellian times in 1661, Philemon Fitzsymons appears at Precentor. He was educated at Trinity College Dublin and worked in Cloyne, Youghal and Inniscarra before taking up his position at Carrigrohane. Three years later he died. His successor was Richard Clerke who graduated from TCD in 1664 and held positions in Cloyne and Lismore before taking over responsibility. 

When one fast forwards through time, new names appear as precentors – Walter Neale (1686), Rowland Davies (1706), Peter Hewet (1710), Thomas Russell (1720), Jemmet Browne (1724), Peter Waterhouse (1732) and Edward Browne (1750), John Chetwynd (1752), Thomas Browne (1757), Thomas Waterhouse (1762), Samuel Woodroffe (1762), John Chetwood (1780), Henry Sandiford (1790).  In addition, Charles Smith in his History of Cork in the year 1750 writes about a new church built on the ruins of the old one in the early eighteenth century.

To be continued…

Captions:

541a. St. Peter’s Church Carrigrohane, May 2010 (pictures: Kieran McCarthy)

541b. River Lee at Leemount Bridge, May 2010