The Gothic Revival in Ireland: St Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh (1868–1916)

The Gothic Revival in Ireland: St Colman's Cathedral, Cobh (1868-1916) Ann Wilson The Catholic cathedral of St Colman in Cobh is a large, elaborately detailed neo-Gothic building (Fig. 01). Overlooking Cork harbour, it is prominently sited and visible from quite a distance. Local people are generally very proud of it, and tourists often climb the steep hill to admire and photograph it. The historian Emmet Larkin has called it "the most ambitious building project undertaken by the Church in nineteenth-century Ireland," and Frederick O'Dwyer states that it was "certainly the most costly Irish ecclesiastical building of the Victorian era." When the cathedral was begun in 1868, Cobh, or Queenstown as it was then called, was a relatively prosperous place: it was Ireland's principal emigration outlet. More than five million people emigrated from Ireland in the nineteenth century – mainly to the United States, Australia, and Canada - and a large proportion of them left from Queenstown. The town's existing Catholic church, which was constructed in 1808 and enlarged afterwards, began to seem inadequate. A meeting of the Queenstown parishioners was therefore called in January 1858, and the following resolution was passed: Considering the very insufficient and in several respects unsatisfactory accommodation which our present parish church is capable of affording; and considering also the rising importance and increasing respectability of this town, it is incumbent on us as Catholics who revere our religion and are anxious to see it respected to provide a more suitable Church for the celebration of the Divine Worship. F. O'Dwyer, "A Victorian Partnership – The Architecture of Pugin & Ashlin," in 150 years of Architecture in Ireland, ed. John Graby (Dublin: RIAI, 1989) 55-62, here 55. Cloyne Diocesan Archives, Diocesan Centre, Cobh, County Cork, Cathedral Papers [henceforth Cloyne Archives], account of decision to build cathedral written by Fr J. Cullinan (1858). Antiphon 11.2 (2007): 14-42 15 St Colman's Cathedral, Cobh By 1864 it had been decided that the proposed building would function not only as a parish church but as a cathedral for the diocese of Cloyne. The original thirteenth-century cathedral of the diocese, situated in the small, east Cork town of Cloyne, was owned by the Anglican Church. As the largest town in the diocese, Queenstown seemed a better location for the modern Catholic cathedral. The building would be dedicated to the diocesan founder, St Colman (AD 560-610). The old church was demolished and construction of the new building was begun in February 1868. The preparatory work was difficult and expensive; the widening of the roadway on the seaward side required the construction of "a high, long, and thick wall of solid mason work," and, because the foundations were dug from steeply sloping rock, "it was necessary in some parts to sink 24 feet below the level of the future floor of the church, while in other parts a firm bottom was found at a depth of only 4 feet." The first sod of the foundations was turned on 25 April 1868, and the foundation stone was laid on 15 July 1868. The foundations were completed by June 1869. The Architectural Competition The cathedral committee, composed of respectable local citizens, was the official decision-making body in the building of the cathedral. The bishop usually presided at meetings, the parish clergy attended, and the current administrator acted as secretary. The committee decided in January 1867 to hold an architectural competition, and George Goldie (1828-87), J. J. McCarthy (1817-82), and the architectural partnership of E. W. Pugin (1834-75) and G. C. Ashlin (1837-1921) were invited to submit plans. The bishop of Cloyne, William Keane, was a friend of the Ashlin family and had been communicating already with Pugin and Ashlin about the proposed church, and Stephen Ash- Colman, son of Lenin and a member of a powerful Munster family, was a royal poet at the Court of Cashel who later embraced religious life. He became a disciple of St Brendan the Navigator and was granted a site for a monastery at Cloyne by the King of Cashel: Rick Prendergast, East Cork in Early Christian Times, Secular and Religious Trends (Calstemartyr, Ireland...

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