ST CANICE’S R.C. CHURCH – NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH THE CHURCH OF IRELAND CATHEDRAL
When I visited this church early in May 2017 I did not get much opportunity to take photographs as there was a very large funeral taking place. It was my intention to revisit the next day but because of poor weather I did not return until August 2018 and then I had other problems. This visit I had planned to photograph the interior but because of a fall I got distracted.
This is described as a fine substantial church built by Reverend Jacob Gorman forming an appealing landmark terminating the vista from Dean Street. The scale and the fine detailing throughout represents a quality rarely seen in churches predating Catholic Emancipation (1829), thereby indicating the religious tolerance in Kilkenny together with the relative prosperity of the local congregation: however, some supplementary ornamentation may have been introduced as part of improvement works carried out in the early twentieth century to designs prepared by William Henry Byrne (1844-1917).
Fine cut-limestone dressings exhibiting expert stone masonry enhance the architectural design value of the composition while decorative plasterwork accents to the interior space exhibiting high quality craftsmanship distinguish the artistic significance of the site: delicate stained glass panels, fine timber joinery, and so on further embellish the church although some alterations carried out following the Second Vatican Council (1963-5) have not had a beneficial impact on the visual quality of the site.
I KNOW THAT I SHALL ARISE AND SEE MY GOD – AD 1488
This inscription is at the entrance to St Marys Church on Claddagh Quay in Galway.
Located on the Claddagh Quay, this Dominican church was designed by William Hague. With its rock-faced granite walls and finely detailed round-headed arches, this handsome church has often been described as being of Norman style. Features such as a carved tympanum and moulded surrounds at the front entrance as well as fine windows enliven the composition. This structure is a good example of the return of the Romanesque style linked with the Celtic Revival-style church architecture of the late nineteenth century. The well-preserved and decorated interior with its richly ornamented reredos, altar and font is especially worthy of note.
The first Dominican foundation in Connacht was Athenry (1241). From there the friars came to Galway in 1488.
When they arrived in Galway, the Dominicans got possession of an old abandoned chapel of ‘the Blessed virgin outside the walls’, otherwise called ‘St Mary on the Hill’, occupied by the Premonstratensian Canons of Tuam from 1235. In later times it came to be called ‘the West Convent’, or ‘St Mary’s outside the gates.’ On the whole, Dominicans in Ireland preferred to live outside the gates of walled towns. They could find a cheaper site, more space, freedom from tolls, and come and go as they wished. The patronage of the wealthy Lynch family, extended thirty years earlier to the visiting friars of Athenry, was maintained in the new foundation.
In the five centuries since the Dominicans from Athenry took possession of the church of St Mary on the Hill, many Galway Dominicans were well known nationally and internationally. We think, for example, of Edmund French who became bishop of Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora, Fr Tom Burke, the ‘prince of preachers’, who worked on the continent and preached not only in Ireland and England but throughout the US, and Fr Dominic Fahy, apostle of Irish emigrants in Argentina. No Galway Dominican, however, has exercised a wider apostolate than Damian Byrne
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