[Extracts from Buildings of Co Armagh by C E B Brett, published by the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society in 1999.]
This is a most curious example of a very important building which
changes both architect, and architectural style, half way up the
walls. The bottom half was designed in 1838, in the English Perpendicular
Gothic style, by Thomas Duff of Newry; the top half designed in
1853, in the French Decorated Gothic style, by J J McCarthy of
Dublin. And just to complicate matters, the interior decor, applied
to the conflicting structures of these two architects, is in part
to the 1904 designs of Ashlin & Coleman of Dublin, in part
to the 1972 designs of McCormick, Tracey and Mullarkey of Londonderry.
The result, unsurprisingly, is a disappointing muddle, quite lacking
in the unity and integrity to be expected in a building of such
importance (though Father Coleman, in 1900, surprisingly, thought
that "the whole structure ... shows a striking unity of design").
Of course many other cathedrals have grown and changed over long
spans of years and changes of mastermind; but it makes an instructive
contrast with its English counterpart, Westminster Cathedral,
built to the designs of J F Bentley for Cardinal Vaughan between
1894 and 1903.
It is interesting that on 3 February, 1840, the Building Committee,
"His Grace the Primate in the Chair, resolved unanimously
that Mr. Duff be appointed our architect; and resolved, that Mr.
Duff is to receive five per cent of the full amount expended on
the building of the cathedral for his superintendence of the work,
and that he will give the Committee one per cent as his subscription
thereto". Galloway suggests that his success at the Roman
Catholic cathedral of St Patrick and St Colman in Newry, dedicated
in 1829, "probably led to the commission to design the cathedral
at Armagh". Unlike his former partner, Thomas Jackson, Duff
was himself a Roman Catholic. According to the 1905 Guide, in
Duff's lifetime "34 feet of the walls were built for £26,000,
Dr Crolly himself personally supervising the work with the assistance
of several foremen".
The explanation for the original change of style is, that building
was interrupted in 1844 by famine and cholera; Duff himself died
in 1848; it was only in 1853 that a new Building Committee settled
with his widow for £100 cash down, and the return of all
drawings and papers relating to the commission. Work under the
new architect did not actually begin until 1854. McCarthy had
attacked Duff's work in the Irish Catholic Magazine in 1847, but
he was stuck with the ground-plan, as the walls had reached the
tops of the aisle windows, but without tracery. "He completely
changed the appearance of Duff's design by getting rid of the
pinnacles on the buttresses, the battlemented parapets on nave
and aisles, and by making the pitch of the roof steeper"
(Sheehy); also by introducing flowing tracery and numerous carved
details. Maurice Craig comments, dryly, "Characteristically,
he altered the style from Perpendicular to Decorated, so that
the spectator must support the absurdity of "fourteenth-century"
works standing on top of "sixteenth-century" (except
for the tracery which was harmonised); but in most ways it is
a very successful building". It was dedicated in 1873.
The sacristy, synod hall, grand entrance, gates and sacristan's
lodge were built later (Galloway says, sexton's lodge and gateway
in 1887, sacristy and synod hall between 1894 and 1897), to the
designs of William Hague, and he was "engaged on the designs
for the great rood screen behind the high altar when he died in
March, 1899. Mr. Hague's work was taken up by Mr. McNamara of
Dublin who subsequently superintended the designing and building
of the rood screen, the beautiful Celtic tracery of the mosaic
passages and floors, and the complex heating and ventilating system".
Further very extensive interior work was undertaken between 1900
and 1905 for Archbishop Logue to the designs of Ashlin & Coleman
of Dublin. The cathedral was reconsecrated in 1903. A great deal
of this excellent work has been removed.
St Patrick's cathedral, with its twin spires, stands tall on its
hill-top, successfully out-soaring its squatter Protestant rival
on the opposite hill. It looks its best from a distance, approached
over the drumlin country to south and west, reminiscent, when
the light is right, of the twin spires of Chartres dominating
the rolling plain of the Ile de France. Stephen Gwynn wrote of
it in 1906: "Today Ireland is full of churches, all of them
built within a hundred years - and almost every church, let it
be clearly understood, is crowded to the limit of its capacity
with worshippers. But here at Armagh is the greatest monument
of all - planted as if in defiance so as to dominate the country
round and outface that older building on the lesser summit: the
costliest church that has been erected within living memory in
Ireland; and not that only. It is in good truth a monument not
of generous wealth (like the two great cathedrals of Christ Church
and St. Patrick's in Dublin) but of devoted poverty: the gift
not of an individual but of a race, out of money won laboriously
by the Catholic Irish at home and in the far ends of the world
... So viewed, I question whether modern Christianity can show
anything more glorious: yet in other aspects the new St. Patrick's
Cathedral must sadden the beholder. The stone of which it is hewn,
as the money that paid for the hewing, is Irish: but the ideas
which shaped the fabric are pure Italian..."
Externally, its best features are the twin broached spires, the
great traceried seven-light west window, and the arcade with the
eleven apostles above the central porch. Internally, its best
feature is now the very high hammer-beam roof with a winged angel
at each angle. Formerly, it was the marvellous lacy and frothy
high altar, screen pulpit and rails of white Caen stone, all the
work of Ashlin & Coleman; but these were unhappily ripped
out and simply discarded in the re-ordering after Vatican II:
two of the beautifully-carved crockets stand on my window-ledge
to this day, having been rescued from the dump by the late Kenneth
Adams. This was justified at the time on the grounds that "the
fine character of the interior was marred by the later introduction
of screens, elaborate altar rails and pulpit": and what the
architects set out to achieve was "a return to JJ McCarthy's
original concept ... They recommended a simplification of the
interior, which would also add a greater formality to ceremony".
If these were the objectives, few people think they have been
successfully achieved. The new fittings already appear dated,
and are utterly incongruous. "Neither the quality of the
replacements nor the skill of the craftsmanship can disguise the
total alienation of the new work from the spirit and meaning that
was McCarthy's ecclesiological and architectural inspiration.
In this setting, these modern intrusions appear dispassionate
and irrelevant" (UAHS, 1992). Jeanne Sheehy acidly records
"the replacement ... of a fine late Gothic revival chancel
with chunks of granite and a tabernacle that looks like a microwave".
It is hard to divine why the church in Ireland has proved to be
so much more insensitive in such matters than in most other countries.
However, one must agree with Galloway's sympathetic summing up:
"Ignoring the work at the crossing, which now has an empty
feeling, this great cruciform cathedral has much beauty ... The
great height, the exquisite perfection of architectural detail,
and the caring decoration of every surface of the walls ... uplifts
the heart and mind ... although the building has a soaring loftiness,
there is not a trace of gloom. This is Gothic Revival at its very
best."
Photographs: Michael O'Connell (see also colour-plate VIb)...
Situation: Cathedral Road, Armagh; td, Corporation; Parish, and
District Council, Armagh; Grid ref H 873 457.
Reference: Listed A (15/20/20); in conservation area. Gallogly,
'History of St. Patrick's Cathedral', 1880, passim; Stuart, 'City
of Armagh' (ed. Coleman), 1900, p 443; Guidebook, 1905, Appendix
A; Gwynn, 'Fair hills of Ireland', 1906, p 118; Sheehy, 'J. J.
McCarthy', UAHS, ]977, pp 39-42; Craig, 'Architecture of Ireland',
1982, p 294; O Fiaich, 'St Patrick's Cathedral', 1987, passim;
'Ulster Architect', June/July 1990, p 58; 'Buildings of Armagh',
UAHS, 1992, pp 70-76, and see the detailed bibliography on the
latter page; Galloway, 'Cathedrals of Ireland', 1992, pp 17-20,
185; J Sheehy, in 'Irish arts review', XIV, 1998, p 185; copy
minutes of Building Committee, in MBR.
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A pretty little wayside gospel hall of corrugated iron, beautifully
painted, walls and roof blue-grey, wooden trim gleaming white:
all spick and span. Three bays deep, plus porch at the front and
store at the rear. Two conical ventilators on the roof-ridge.
To the left of the porch, a placard announcing "The Wages
of Sin Is Death", and to the right another, announcing "The
Gift of God Is Eternal Life". Very neat and tidy little garden
on one side, very neat and tidy little car-park on the other.
It was built in 1923, by whom is not remembered.
Photograph: Michael O'Connell (see also colour-plate VIII).
Situation: On the road from Markethill to Glenanne; td, Glenanne;
parish, Loughgilly; District Council, Armagh; Grid ref H 986350.
References: Not listed. Information from Mr Walter McIlveen, Markethill
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