A Side Trip to Dublin

Newman’s University Church, Dublin.

 

What could be of greater interest to the student of the New York Archdiocese than the Church of Dublin?  After all, up to the not too distant past the core of the Catholic population in our area was Irish American – and since the early 19th century all the Archbishops have been Irish as well.  The true builders of the Archdiocese were indeed the Irish. Why, up till not too long ago there always seemed to be at least one priest at St. Patrick’s Cathedral with a thick brogue – kept on for local color, I guess.

Alas, the visitor quickly discovers that the traditional Ireland of even 20 years ago is no more. A crowd of every nationality and race under heaven pushes through the pedestrian zone of Grafton Street, accompanied by ear-splitting music. Many Moslems are among them. The atmosphere resembles much more the “Zeil” (main shopping street) of Frankfurt than the Ireland of even the recent past. The glass and metal structures of the “financial district”, sometimes in bizarre shapes, line the Liffey. Where Nelson’s Pillar once stood in the middle of O’Connell Street  there now rises a bizarre shining spire. The Irish,  who belatedly demolished one symbol of an earlier empire,  have now voluntarily erected in its place an even larger sign of the new world order. For modern Ireland has very definitely become an integral part of  “EU Land.”

This atmosphere of course has not been kind to the Church. Ireland held out against secularism longer than any country in Western Europe – Pope John Paul II’s 1979 visit was a triumph matched only by his first visit to his native country. Within 20 years that Ireland was no more.  Today, at least in the center of Dublin,  the small congregations at the Catholic masses resemble those of, say, the church in Germany:  older, female and sometimes with a strong foreign element. And then there is the never ending drumfire of the sex abuse scandals….

 

But the structures of the past remain.

 

 

In the 1850’s Newman became the rector of the new Catholic University in Dublin. Here he not only developed the ideas set forth in his classic The Idea of a University but also supervised the construction of the University chapel that stands today.  Obviously Newman’s notion of a church is radically different from that of Pugin.  Derived partially from Oratorian ideals and partially from the practical need to have a structure that could serve as a hall for major events of University life,  the University Church imitates the simple early churches of Rome with apse decoration modelled in part on San Clemente.

 

The Cardinal gazes upon his creation….

More in keeping with the spirit of Dublin are the great neoclassical churches of the first half of the 19th century – direct descendants of the Georgian and neoclassical architecture of the city’s golden age. These splendid buildings only becaome possible with the loosening of the barbarous penal laws towards the end of the the 18th century. Only a very few New York churches of the 1830’s were constructed in this style: St. James. St. Peter and St. Joseph in the Village. But these contemporary Dublin neoclassical churches have a more prominent position in the streetscape and have an air of grandeur unknown to their New York sisters.

 

St. Andrew. Constructed in the 1830’s- 1840’s, this parish church boasts a baptismal font donated by the Liberator himself (O’Connell). It was a former wine cooler.

 

 

St. Andrew.

 

 

St. Andrew.

 

 

St. Andrew – a neoclassical monument to a deceased young girl.

 

St. Audoen – amid the traffic of High Street. Up to 2007 this church was the home of the Traditional mass in Dublin

St. Audoen. The interior, of a calm and monumental grandeur, dates from the 1840’s – the facade was completed later.

 

St. Audoen. The furnishings of Dublin churches vary wildly in quality. Some of the artwork – like this statue of the madonna – is of a very high quality.  But cheap plaster statues and lackluster repoductions of  “masterpiece” paintings also abound.

 

St. Audoen – a shrine to John Paul II. This ancient parish is now largely given over to a Polish congregation. Their aesthetic ideals faithfully reflect those of their patron.

The Pro-Cathedral built in the 1820’s in a severe yet satisfying neoclassical style. it remains only a “Pro-Cathedral” because both of Dublin’s medieval cathedrals ( a unique feature of the city) remain in Anglican hands.

The interior reflects both Roman and Greek (Doric) inspiration.

It is somewhat of a relief to turn to the city’s two ancient cathedrals ( I share Pugin’s views on the relative merits of the Gothic and “Classical” styles in church architecture). Dating in large part from the 13th century, they were extensively restored in the 19th. Both St. Patrick’s and Christchurch (shown here) remain in Anglican hands.

The baptistery – a Gothic Revival masterpiece.