St Colman's

The list of gutted interiors is numerous and reads like a roll-call of great pieces of 19th century Irish church architecture: Monaghan; Letterkenny; Limerick, Killarney, Armagh, and many more. And now perhaps the greatest of them all, prepares to join this less than illustrious club; the end game in the campaign to stop the re-organisation of St Colman's in Cobh is approaching.

Designed by Edward W. Pugin and George Ashlin, this magnificent cathedral, which dominates Cork Harbour from land and sea, took 47 years to build, and was completed in 1915.

Edward Welby Pugin was the eldest son of Augustus W.N. Pugin, a famous architect & designer of Gothic architecture. After his father's death in 1852 Edward Pugin took over his father's successful architecture practice. At the time of his own early death in 1875, Pugin had designed and completed more than 100 Roman Catholic churches. He designed churches and Cathedrals primarily in the U.K and Ireland.

The proposal is to remove and relocate the altar rails and extend the sanctuary area into the nave, which would involve disturbing the mosaic sanctuary floor designed by architect George Ashlin and made by Ludwig Oppenheimer of Manchester in 1892. The diocese is looking to create a permanent altar on an extended sanctuary. This would cause the removal of at least eight rows of church benches and the covering over of up to 85ft of the original mosaic flooring.

Interior

The town council received over 200 submissions about the controversial proposal with the majority vehemently opposed to the project. The submissions included those from An Taisce, The Pugin Society and the Irish Georgian Society. The plan has split the local congregation - with a majority opposed to the project and demanding that the Pugin-designed cathedral be left exactly as it is.

Friends of St Colman's Cathedral (FOSCC) says it has collected over 24,000 signatures from people in the dioceses and says the alterations would "destroy, deface and distort" the internationally renowned cathedral. "The liturgy can be celebrated adequately in Cobh Cathedral as it is," says the appeal. "The Gothic grandeur of the interior, the transcendent beauty and graceful proportions will be utterly lost if the proposed changes are allowed."

Restoration work on St Colman's began a decade ago when it was found that the roof was leaking water. The multi-million Euro restoration project, of which the reordering of the sanctuary is the final element, then began. It included a new roof, under-floor heating and repair of the intricate stone work.

The Proposal - Cathal O'Neill & Associates

With a view to redesigning the sanctuary, a number of architecture firms were short listed and interviewed. The firm of Cathal O'Neill & Associates has been retained to carry out the works. Previously they worked on the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin, and O'Neill has served on the Committee of Sacred Art and Architecture for the Diocese of Dublin.

According to the Diocese, St Colman's will lose none of its original fabric, and if there is a need at some future date to reinstate things as they were, it will be possible to do so.

But the Friends of St Colman's believe that what is now proposed for the cathedral is merely what happened elsewhere in Ireland in the guise of Vatican II. In a twenty year period from the mid 1980s onwards, most Irish cathedrals lost their original interior fittings including railings, high altars, side altars, pulpits and thrones. This makes the integrity of Cobh all the more important.

St Macartan's Cathedral - Gerald McCann

St Macartan's Cathedral in Monaghan is widely regarded to be the best work of J.J. McCarthy, dubbed the "Irish Pugin". In the mid eighties after a restoration of the exterior fabric, the entire interior with the exception of the organ was removed and destroyed. Now the interior lacks focus, the body of the church does not draw the eye to the magnificent hammerbeam roof as intended by the architects, instead the sacristy area is nondescript, bland, and beige. Not the interior one expects from a magnificent Victorian gothic revival church.

This was only the tip of the iceberg, over the years, cathedrals from Killarney to Letterkenny were hacked beyond recognition to fall inline with the incumbent bishop's interpretation of Vatican II. Communities across Ireland now regret bitterly what was allowed happen in the name of progress, and now it is Cobh's turn to fight. Indeed the diocese is going down this path after other dioceses have realised their mistakes and tried to put right some of their excesses: St Patrick's in Armagh has recently removed some of the more outlandish additions from its Vatican II makeover; people in Killarney who purchased some of the removed fittings, have been offering to sell them back (at cost) for re-insertion in St Mary's.

On 5th October 2005, Arthur Cox Solicitors, Dublin lodged an Appeal with An Bord Pleanala on behalf of the Friends of St. Colman's Cathedral lodged an Appeal with An Bord Pleanala against the Planning Permission granted to the Trustees of St. Colman's Cathedral on September 5th 2005. An Oral Hearing was also requested. Three other Appeals have also been lodged with An Bord Pleanala, from An Taisce, The Irish Georgian Society and from the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government.