St. Aidan's Cathedral (Enniscorthy)
The Saint Aidan Cathedral of Enniscorthy ( English St. Aidan's Cathedral Enniscorthy , Irish Ardeaglais Naomh Aodháin Inis Córthaidh ) is the episcopal church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ferns , which has its seat in Enniscorthy , and is dedicated to the monastery founder and first Bishop Aidán . It is one of two cathedrals in Ireland, along with St. Mary's Cathedral in Killarney , designed by A. W. N. Pugin , one of the most important English neo-Gothic architects . The cathedral was built from 1843 to 1849 and consecrated in 1860.
history
It was not until the beginning of the 19th century that Bishop Patrick Ryan chose Enniscorthy as the seat of the Diocese of Ferns. For this purpose, Bishop Ryan had a temporary episcopal church built above the city on the steep slope west of the River Slaney. The cramped hillside location meant that both the temporary and the later cathedral could only be built in a north-south orientation. As early as 1838, Bishop James Keating found that the temporary solution was too small and in need of repair.
At that time, AWN Pugin was already a well-known architect in England. Its main sponsors included John Talbot , the 16th Earl of Shrewsbury , who at the time was one of the most prominent Roman Catholic lay people in England. The Earl's titles also included the Earldom of Wexford and Waterford, and through his wife he was also related to John Hyacinth Talbot , who then represented New Ross in the House of Commons . Through these Catholic connections, Pugin was introduced to Bishop James Keating. Pugin's earliest works in Ireland included the 1838–1839 Chapel at Bree , the Church of Archangel Michael at Gorey, and the Chapel of St Peter's College at Wexford , all located in County Wexford in the Diocese of Bishop James Keating. Pugin visited Ireland only ten times in total, and his visits were always very brief. Instead, he had the building sites inspected by others and the results of the survey work sent to him. Pugin's first visit to Ireland was when St. Peter's College was laid on June 18, 1838.
Subsequently, Pugin was commissioned to design the cathedral in Enniscorthy. Here, too, Pugin stuck to his way of working and trusted the site management through the architect Richard Pierce. This approach emerges from one of his letters to John Hyacinth Talbot in 1843:
" I send [...] you the first plans for the church [...] at Enniscorthy [...] when I come over I will set out the tracery windows with Pierce as it is better I should do so with him than send them over. But there is nothing to hinder the foundations of the new church being commenced as Pierce will perfectly understand the plans. "
“I will send you […] the first plans for the church […] in Enniscorthy […] as soon as I come over, I will work with Pierce to fix the tracery for the windows, as it seems better to do this with him than to send them . But nothing stands in the way of laying the foundations, as Pierce will fully understand the plans. "
Based on the correspondence, Pugin's visit to the site is assumed to be in 1843; another visit is only recorded for 1845.
The foundation stone was laid in July 1843, and the new building was carried out around the old provisional church so that it could continue to be used. When the choir and transept were completed in June 1846, the first mass could be held in the new building. The three-aisled nave was built between 1846 and 1848. Then the temporary was demolished; the crossing was roofed in 1850.
After the death of Bishop Keating on September 7, 1849, Myles Murphy was consecrated on March 10, 1850. However, the changes made by Bishop Murphy inside the cathedral did not meet with Pugin's approval, as one of his letters shows:
" The cathedral I built, at Enniscorthy, has been completely ruined. The new bishop has blocked up the choir, stuck the altars under the tower !! and the whole building is in the most painful state of filth: the sacrarium is full of rubbish, and it could hardly have been worse if it had fallen into the hands of Hottentots. "
“The cathedral I built in Enniscorthy has been completely ruined. The new bishop has cordoned off the choir and fixed the altars under the tower !! And the entire building is in a terrible filthy condition: the Piscina is filled with frippery, and it could hardly have been worse if it had fallen into the hands of the Hottentots . "
Pugin, who collapsed in 1851 and died in 1852, had no influence on further development.
Thomas Furlong , who took over the bishopric in 1857 after Murphy's death, commissioned the architect James Joseph McCarthy , who was later nicknamed "the Irish Pugin", to complete the interior work in the Pugin style . The work was completed by 1860, after which the Furlong Cathedral was consecrated. In addition to the tower built in 1850, a spire was added from 1870 to 1871, but this turned out to be too heavy and therefore caused the tower to sag. That is why both the tower and the spire were demolished and rebuilt in a slightly smaller version between 1872 and 1873.
In 1915 a mortuary chapel was added in the northeast corner of the cathedral. From 1936 to 1945 a lengthy restoration phase took place, during which the leaky roof was replaced and new pews made of Austrian oak were added. After completing the work and paying off all debts, the cathedral was consecrated again on June 29, 1946 by Bishop James Staunton .
During the tenure of Bishop Donal Herlihy in 1970, all of the decorations Pugin designed were painted over in white. They were only restored in a large-scale restoration in 1994 under the successor Brendan Comiskey . Due to the liturgical reform adopted as part of the Second Vatican Council , the main altar was moved under the crossing, which led to criticism.
architecture
Pugin chose Tintern Abbey in Wales as a model . While the aisles were also divided into six bays , the choir was slightly shorter with three instead of four bays, and the side chapels were omitted. In keeping with the medieval architecture, Tintern has heavy retaining walls on the outside, which were also omitted in Enniscorthy, so that the cathedral has clearly clearer contours. The chapel for the dead and other additional buildings that were later added to the choir are not found in Tintern and also did not correspond to Pugin's plans.
literature
- Peter Galloway: The Cathedrals of Ireland . The Institute of Irish Studies, Belfast 1992, ISBN 0-85389-452-3 (English).
- Jeremy Williams: Architecture in Ireland 1837-1921 . Irish Academic Press, Dublin 1994, ISBN 0-7165-2513-5 , pp. 378 (English).
- Roderick O'Donnell: The Pugins in Ireland . In: Paul Atterburgy (Ed.): AWN Pugin: Master of Gothic Revival . Yale University Press, New York 1995, ISBN 0-300-06656-2 , pp. 136-159 (English).
- Rosemary Hill: God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain . Penguin Books, London 2008, ISBN 978-0-14-028099-9 (English).
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ See the foreword by Susan Weber Soros to the volume published by Atterburgy on Pugin: "He was singlehandedly responsible for the early nineteenth-century interpretation of medieval art and architecture that blossomed into the Gothic Revival".
- ↑ a b c See Peter Galloway, p. 103
- ↑ See Hill, p. 169
- ↑ See Hill, p. 199
- ↑ a b See article by O'Donnell, p. 143.
- ↑ Cf. essay by O'Donnell, p. 146: "[...], a commission that resulted from Bishop Keating's involvement with Saint Peter's College, Wexford [...]"
- ↑ See article by O'Donnell, pp. 143–144
- ↑ See article by O'Donnell, p. 146, and Galloway, p. 103.
- ↑ See EB Fryde et al. (Ed.): Handbook of British Chronology . Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-521-56350-X , pp. 429 .
- ↑ a b Cf. Galloway, p. 104.
- ↑ See information brochure available in the cathedral.
- ↑ See Williams, p. 378: "The present modern high altar in the crossing has only just been completed and reconsecrated in a ceremony that would doubtlessly have appalled the architect."
Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 8.5 " N , 6 ° 34 ′ 14.6" W.