The Churches of Cork City (eBook)

INTRODUCTION

On Sunday 20 July 1856, speaking at the official opening of the recently completed church of St Vincent de Paul at Sunday’s Well in Cork city, Most Reverend Dr Dixon, Primate of All Ireland, began his homily by referring to the sentiments of the people of Israel as they returned home having witnessed the dedication of the Temple of Solomon:

… and they blessed the King and they went to their dwellings rejoicing and glad in heart for all the good things which the Lord had done to David His servant and Israel His people.1

So also, said Dr Dixon, would the people of Sunday’s Well return home joyous in heart upon the completion of the beautiful church that now stood on the north-western hills of the city, overlooking the valley below. Fifty years later, on Sunday 14 October 1906, at the celebration of the golden jubilee and consecration of St Vincent’s, His Lordship Dr Kelly, Bishop of Ross, recalled the promises made in the Old Testament to Jacob, who, while sleeping in the desert, had dreamed of a ladder which angels ascended and descended to and from heaven. Jacob anointed the stone on which his head had lain and declared the place Bethel or a house of worship to the Lord. It was, Jacob cried, the house of God and the gateway to heaven. Dr Kelly preached that the church of St Vincent was now ‘consecrated for all time to the Divine Service as a Bethel, a House of God’.

A century earlier, on Monday 22 August 1808, at the ceremony of dedication of the Catholic Cathedral of St Mary and St Anne, better known throughout the city as the North Chapel, Dr Florence McCarthy, coadjutor bishop of the diocese, had also recalled the famous sentiments of Jacob when he chose as the theme of his sermon, ‘This is no other but the House of God and the Gate of Heaven’. Nor was it just the Catholic community that placed such importance on the building of churches. In 1862 the Church of Ireland community in Cork began the process that culminated in the construction of St Fin Barre’s Cathedral in the Gill Abbey area of the city.2

Let us raise a monument of Christian zeal, love, and piety, to the Almighty giver of all our blessings … and thus leave a witness to the faith, liberality and self-denial of our present age, to our children’s children.3

Although primarily built as places of worship and for the expression of faith, very often the construction of churches was significant in other ways. In particular, following periods of oppression, the building of churches was a statement that such oppression had failed to subdue the faithful and that the faith of the people had permanence, as represented by the solidity of the constructed edifices.

The dedication of the Catholic Cathedral of St Mary and St Anne in 1808 took place some nine years after the beginning of the construction of the church in 1799. Erected on the hills on the north side of the city, it was a clear statement in stone that the repression of the Penal Laws, which had sought to suppress Catholicism over the previous two centuries, was coming to an end and that Catholicism was emerging to live in the public domain once again. Increased Catholic freedom under the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 was also followed by a number of church-building endeavours, including the construction of St Vincent’s in Sunday’s Well.

The phenomenon of church building following periods of repression, as occurred in the post-Penal Laws and Catholic Emancipation years, was not unique. Throughout history, there had been similar public expressions through the medium of church building. Years after the Reformation and the suppression of the monasteries by King Henry VIII, the various friars’ orders built new churches, from which they served the people in their areas. The Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians and Capuchins all built new places of worship in Cork during these years.

A thousand years earlier, following the oppression of the faithful in England during the fourth century, the ecclesiastical historian Bede recorded:

When this storm of persecution came to an end, faithful Christians, who during the time of danger had taken to the woods, deserted places, and hidden caves, came into the open, and rebuilt the ruined churches.4

Thus, throughout history, among the faithful, the building of a Bethel or a house of God was significant in a number of ways. In their primary function they were the life-centre of a faith community where shared beliefs and tenets were celebrated openly; the structures were not just places of worship but statements on the landscape that testified to the beliefs and resilience of people, often in the face of adversity; internally many churches were full of symbolism that both emphasised the beliefs of the faithful and also connected contemporary faith with what had gone before, often as far back as biblical times; physically, churches were architectural adornments of the hinterland; finally and consequently, today, existing places of worship, and the remains of what were places of worship in the past, are repositories of historical information for both archaeologists and historians. The history of the churches in a particular place, then, is a multi-layered narrative that tells of the importance of the faith for the people; their resilience in the face of adversity; the influences that came to bear upon their society; aspects of the nature of artistry; and the place of the church in the hierarchy of power-brokerage in society. Above all, the story of churches is the story of the people that built them.

Aspects of church history in Cork are well documented by a number of eminent historians, not least from among the religious communities residing and serving in the city. In her four-volume History of the Diocese of Cork, Evelyn Bolster RSM records the development of the episcopal see at Cork from the time of St Finbarr, through the transition from a Celtic-structured monastic Church to a Roman diocesan one, to the effects of the Reformation and the period of the Penal Laws, to the post-Catholic Emancipation years and the episcopate of William Delaney in the nineteenth century. From the point of view of a study of churches in the city, her work not only identifies the earliest places of worship, but also where the evidence for these is to be found, as well as the constructions undertaken by the secular clergy and the various orders. Many of the documents cited are located in a variety of religious archives and consequently not easily accessed. Furthermore, most of them, in particular those from the medieval period, are written in Latin. Hence the value of Bolster’s research and work in chronicling the history of churches in the city of Cork.

Other works of importance include those undertaken by members of the friars’ orders regarding their own histories in the city. On the occasion of the opening of the most recent Franciscan church at Broad Lane in 1954, Revd Fr Jerome O’Callaghan OFM published a commemorative book which included an account by Fr Canice Mooney OFM of the Franciscans in the city, from their arrival in the thirteenth century. In 1977 Fr Bartholomew Egan OFM revised this text and published it under the title The Friars of Broad Lane. The Revd James A. Dwyer undertook a similar project for the Dominicans, publishing The Dominicans of Cork City and County in 1896. Similarly, the Augustinians have produced works that detail their history in the city, such as that written by Thomas C. Butler OSA in 1986. These histories, specific to the particular orders in Cork, are best considered and understood when read in conjunction with broader studies regarding the arrival and spread of the orders throughout Ireland and the works undertaken by them. The writings of Colmán Ó Clabaigh OSB – The Franciscans in Ireland 1440–1534 and The Friars in Ireland 1224–1540 – provide just such an overview.

Apart from the friars’ orders’ places of worship, many other churches were built in the city of Cork during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from St Patrick’s in 1832 and Sts Peter and Paul’s in the 1860s to those built to serve the rapidly expanding suburbs that developed in the city after the Second World War. When, in time, various jubilees and centenaries arose, a variety of commemorative publications, which detailed histories of these churches, were published. St Vincent’s Church, Sunday’s Well: History and Heritage by Antóin and Sandra O’Callaghan was one such; S.S. Peter & Paul’s Church, Cork, 150th Anniversary Booklet was another. Many churches in the city have also published booklets for visitors and tourists that include brief histories, as well as descriptions of various artworks and stained-glass windows. For example, Fr Patrick Conlon OFM, in association with the Cork Public Museum, published Aspects of Franciscan Art in Cork in 1996. Virginia Teehan and Elizabeth Wincott Heckett’s The Honan Chapel: A Golden Vision is unrivalled as an account of the context and embellishment of a church in the city.

Religious history in Cork – in particular, aspects of religious history associated with churches – has also been documented in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society. Accounts of the history of the Franciscans appeared in the 1917 and 1940 editions, while the Augustinian convent of medieval Cork featured in 1941. In a special 1943 edition on a variety of subjects associated with the religious history of the city, it wasn’t just the Catholic story that was included; Church of Ireland churches and the Nonconformist communities, such as the...