St. Brendan's Cathedral at Annaghdown

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Northwest view of the former cathedral
Annaghdown

The Saint Brendan Cathedral of Annaghdown ( Irish Ardeaglais Eanach Dhúin , English Annaghdown Cathedral of St. Brendan ) was an episcopal church dedicated to Brendan the traveler of the diocese of Eanach Dhúin on Lough Corrib in what is now County Galway in Ireland , which was founded in the 12th century and for centuries fought for recognition in a dispute with the Archdiocese of Tuam . After the Reformation in the 16th century, the church fell to the Church of Ireland , who changed the structure of the church and used it as a parish church until at least the 18th century.

history

The origin of Annaghdown goes back to the establishment of a nunnery by Brendan for his sister Bríg, which was made possible by a donation from the King of Connacht Aed († 576). According to Brendan's Vita, he died while visiting his sister in Annaghdown. His body was then transferred to Clonfert . In 1140, the abbey southwest of the church was founded for the Augustinian canons .

When exactly Annaghdown became a bishopric is unclear. The Synod of Kells in 1152, which was so important for the diocesan division of Ireland, does not yet name Annaghdown in its list of Irish bishoprics. As early as 1189, however, Conn O Mellaig was named as Bishop of Annaghdown by the three Irish bishops who took part in the coronation ceremony of Richard I in Westminster . At this point after the invasion , the English throne was already claiming Ireland, but had not yet conquered Connacht, which was part of western Ireland. Aubrey Gwynn thinks it likely that Conn O Mellaig had been ordained bishop shortly before and that, with the support of the English king, the diocese was founded at the expense of the Archdiocese of Tuam. Tuam consistently denied the legitimacy of this operation, resulting in centuries of litigation between Annaghdown and Tuam, which came before both the English throne and the Pope . Although the election of Conchobar as bishop was confirmed in 1251 by Innocent IV , Tuam succeeded in Henry III. to enforce the union of the dioceses in August 1252, whereby Annaghdown was reduced to the seat of an archdeaconate for half a century . In 1306, Gilbert Ó Tigernaig was elected as a new bishop, who was ordained with royal support in 1308, but because of Tuam's continued resistance, he was unable to perform his office locally and was forced to remain in exile in England. For the bishops who followed him until the 15th century, it was also true that they only carried the title and did not live on site.

The construction time of the cathedral can largely be classified in the late Middle Ages, with the east window and various details pointing to the 12th and 13th centuries. After the Reformation, the church was used as an Anglican parish church and was last modified in 1798 with funds from the Board of First Fruits in the amount of £ 500, especially on the south side. In 1840 it was described as a small and very well-kept church building.

architecture

The cathedral is a simple rectangular structure 15.8 m long and 6.05 m wide. Most important here is the east window, which comes from the Irish transition period from the Romanesque to the Gothic architectural style. The window is closed at the top in a semicircle, whereby the cut-out cuts the wall at an obtuse angle so that the window is beveled inwards. Correspondingly, the window on the outside has a height of approx. 2.4 m, which expands inwards to a height of approx. 3.6 m. On the inside the window is surrounded by a profile and further inside by a diamond frieze, whereby the flat elements delimited by the rhombuses are all provided with individual floral patterns. The beginning and the end of the diamond frieze are each designed as the beginning and end of a worm-like mythical creature that lies around the window. Leask estimated that the window was made at the end of the 12th century, but not before 1180. Peter Harbison also assumes that it was made around 1200 and sees it as the finest of its kind in Ireland.

Annaghdown Cathedral East Window 2010 09 12.jpg
Annaghdown Cathedral East Window Sculptured Head of the Beast 2010 09 12.jpg
Annaghdown Cathedral East Window Sculptured Tail of the Beast 2010 09 12.jpg


The east window with the interior view, the head and the tail end of the mythical creature

The Romanesque east window in an otherwise Gothic building, which was also significantly structurally altered by the Anglican Church in 1798, gave room for speculation that the window had been taken from the ruins of the neighboring abbey, as the east window in an otherwise Romanesque choir area is missing. This seemed particularly plausible when it was not yet clear that the rest of the church was of medieval origin. Wilde still assumed that the neighboring abbey was the cathedral and that the window for the new Protestant building was removed and taken over. This view was simply adopted later. Only later analyzes showed that the Gothic entrance portal in the north side of the church with work that has similarities to stone carvings on the cathedral of Kilfenora can also be assigned to around the year 1200. A takeover of the east window cannot be ruled out from today's perspective. However, Harbison points out that the east window is perfectly embedded in the east wall and it cannot be assumed that such a good installation could succeed centuries later. From his point of view, the temporal proximity of the east window and the portal also speaks against this thesis.

It is also conceivable that there was a previous building, some elements of which were taken over in a subsequent building. This is supported by the fact that apart from the two early elements and the structural changes made in 1798, the building was classified in the late Middle Ages.

literature

  • William R. Wilde: Lough Corrib, Its Shores and Islands . McGlashan & Gill, Dublin 1872 ( archive.org ).
  • Robert Cochrane: Proceedings . In: The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland . Vol. 31, No. 3 , 1901, pp. 303-340 .
  • Harold G. Leask: Irish Churches and Monastic Buildings I . The First Phases and the Romanesque. Dundalgan Press, Dundalk 1955, pp. 157 .
  • Aubrey Gwynn , R. Neville Hadcock: Medieval Religious Houses Ireland . Longman, London 1970, ISBN 0-582-11229-X , pp. 60-61 .
  • EB Fryde, DE Greenway, S. Porter, I. Roy (Eds.): Handbook of British Chronology . 3. Edition. Cambridge University Press, 1986, ISBN 0-521-56350-X , pp. 329-331 .
  • Peter Galloway: The Cathedrals of Ireland . The Institute of Irish Studies, Belfast 1992, ISBN 0-85389-452-3 , pp. 5-7 .
  • Seán Spellissy: The History of Galway: City & County . The Celtic Bookshop, Limerick 1999, ISBN 0-9534683-4-8 , pp. 255-257 .
  • Olive Alcock, Kathy de hÓra, Paul Gosling: Archaeological Inventory of County Galway, Volume II: North Galway . Stationery Office, Dublin 1999, ISBN 0-7076-6179-X , pp. 292-293 .
  • Tadhg O'Keeffe: Romanesque Ireland . Architecture and Ideology in the Twelfth Century. Four Courts Press, Dublin 2003, ISBN 1-85182-617-3 , pp. 204 .
  • Peter Harbison : A Thousand Years of Church Heritage in East Galway . Ashfield Press, Dublin 2005, ISBN 1-901658-58-9 , pp. 34-37 .
  • Pádraig Ó Riain: A Dictionary of Irish Saints . Four Courts Press, Dublin 2011, ISBN 978-1-84682-318-3 , pp. 115-117, 119 .

Web links

Commons : Annaghdown Cathedral  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Gwynn, pp. 60-61.
  2. ↑ Alcock, p. 292.
  3. ↑ Gwynn, p. 60; Spellissy, p. 255; Harbison, p. 34; Annals of Inisfallen , entry AI578.1. The dating has been corrected according to the tables by Daniel P. Mc Carthy: The Chronology of the Irish Annals , 1998, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Volume 98C, pages 203-255, further information and link to the text
  4. ↑ Ó Riain, pp. 116, 119; Charles Plummer (Ed.): Lives of Irish Saints: Volume II . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1922, pp. 91-92 .
  5. ↑ Gwynn, pp. 153, 156.
  6. ↑ Gwynn, p. 60; HJ Lawlor: A Fresh Authority for the Synod of Kells, 1152 . In: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature . Vol. 36, (1921-1924), pp. 16-22 .
  7. ↑ Gwynn, p. 60; Spellissy, p. 256; Fryde, p. 329.
  8. ↑ Gwynn, pp. 60-61; Maurice P. Sheehy (Ed.): Pontificia Herbernica . Medieval Papal Chancery Documents Concerning Ireland, 640-1261. Volume II. MH Gill, Dublin 1965, p. 161-163 .
  9. ^ Michael Robson: Gilbert Ó Tigernaig Bishop of Annaghdown, c.1306-23 . In: Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society . Vol. 48, (1996), pp. 48-68 .
  10. ↑ Gwynn, p. 61; Fryde, p. 330.
  11. ↑ Alcock, p. 293.
  12. ↑ a b c Harbison, p. 36.
  13. ^ Samuel Lewis: A topographical dictionary of Ireland . 2nd Edition. Vol. I. London 1840, p. 29 ( google.de ).
  14. ↑ Alcock, p. 292.
  15. ^ Leask, p. 157.
  16. ↑ The dimensions given in the literature are 12 feet outside and 8 feet inside: Cochrane, p. 320.
  17. ^ Leask, p. 157.
  18. ↑ Wilde, p. 71.
  19. ↑ Cochrane, p. 320; Richard Hayward: The Corrib Country . Dundalgan Press, Dundalk 1943, pp. 132 .
  20. ↑ Alcock, p. 293; Lord Killanin, Michael V. Duignan: The Shell Guide to Ireland . 2nd Edition. Ebury Press, London 1967, pp. 56 .
  21. ↑ Alcock, p. 292; Spellissy, p. 255.

Coordinates: 53 ° 23 ′ 15.9 "  N , 9 ° 4 ′ 16.3"  W.