John Lynch

The church of St John the Evangelist is one of four parish churches in the city of Kilkenny. The foundation stone for this church was laid on 2 May 1897.¹ The church was built with funds supplied totally by the will of Martin Loughlin who was originally from Castlewarren in the county of Kilkenny. This gives the alternate name of O’Loughlin Memorial Church. He amassed great wealth through gold mining in Ballarat, Victoria in Australia.² Martin is well remembered in Kilkenny, indeed a roadway nearby, formerly Williams’s Lane is now called O’Loughlin Road.³ The parish G.A.A. club is named O’Loughlin Gaels in honour of the O’Loughlin family.

The construction of St John’s church was unusual in two respects. It replaced a perfectly good church that stood nearby and it was built because of the wealth of one man, Martin Loughlin, (later O’Loughlin), and the influence of another, Bishop Brownrigg of Ossory. This wealth and influence coupled with the ability of a great architect, William Hague gave Kilkenny a magnificent place of worship still in full use today, one hundred years later.

Brief history and description of St John’s Parish

The parish of St John covers an area of about 14,600 statute acres. It is a union of the civil parishes of St John, Dunmore, Rathcoole (part), Kilderry and Kilkieran.⁴ It is mentioned in the Red Book of Ossory around 1300 AD. About 1211, William, Earl Marshall appropriated it to the Canons Regular of St Augustine and from then on it was known as the Parish of St John the Evangelist.⁵ The present church superseded a previous church as already mentioned. This church, locally known as Maudlin Street chapel stood at the Maudlin Gate in the churchyard of St Stephen.⁶ John Rocques map of 1758 shows ‘St Magdalens Chapple’ several hundred metres south of the present church. (See map p 36). This chapel was rebuilt in 1796 according to Carrigan and lasted till 1847 when it was taken down. This building was a cross chapel as seen on Rocque’s map with nave, chancel and transept. (See map p 37).

In 1840 a new parish church was built which served as a place of worship until the present church was consecrated in 1908. This church, Maudlin St chapel, continued as a parish hall with occasional concerts until 1956 when it was taken down and the dressed stone used in the Collier wing of St Kieran’s College in Kilkenny City.⁷ (See map p 38).

Salient Characteristics

The architect of the church was William Hague. He designed it in a Gothic style which had been passionately advocated by Augustus Welby Pugin,⁸ (1812-1852), and taken up by Joseph McCarthy who was also a disciple of the Ecclesiological Society.⁹ William Hague was ‘heavily influenced by J.J. McCarthy’.¹⁰ This Gothic style endeavoured to reproduce the ‘spirit and details of medieval Gothic building’.¹¹ To capture this ‘spirit and detail’ Gothic Revival used buttresses, ribbed vaulting, pinnacles, elaborate tracery in the windows and high pointed arches. St Johns Church has all of the above characteristics. The most notable characteristic of St John’s is an omission, a feature that does not appear at all. That is the absence of a tower or steeple. (see plate 1). There are several reasons given for this omission and I shall return to them later. The ceiling is plastered groined rib vaulting, the windows and doorways have high pointed arches, and buttresses appear on the outside walls with several flying buttresses, crocketted pinnacles appear on every available point, both outside and inside the building. The windows with their mullions and stone tracery together with the clerestory windows are all redolent of the Gothic Revival.

I will now look at these Gothic Revival characteristics in more detail and describe the practical and decorative features. The church building, churchyard and presbytery stand on an airy, level, elevated site. This area was shown on the 1841 Ordnance Survey map as ‘the tenters.’¹²

The site was donated free of charge by the third Marquis of Ormonde.¹³ The positioning of the church building on this site gives it a light delicate appearance when viewed from the entrance gates on the Dublin Road, and it appears to float above its three broad granite entrance steps.

The building plan has a nave, two side aisles with the sanctuary in the western part consisting of an apse (polygonal termination) or ambulatory, this may also be described as a chevit. Outside, the stonework is ashlar limestone block with infill of rock faced limestone block. This originally gave a striking monochrome appearance to the building, which is apparent in old photographs. (see picture 1, page 21) This has now weathered to a uniform soft grey appearance that is very appealing. The buttresses both rudimentary and flying, containing the outward thrust of the walls caused by the weight of the roof are decorated with a hipped roof redolent of the early Irish churches. (pic. 2, p 22). The four confessionals, built into the side walls are also decorated with these hipped roofs, (five on each confessional). (pic. 3, p 23). The flying buttresses arc over the lean-to roofs of both side-aisles. These buttresses are characteristic of gothic architecture. Looking from the front towards the main doorway you are struck by the absence of any spire or bell tower. The original plans showed a spire rising to 234 feet. This was never added due to ground conditions and the belief that the weight of the steeple would prove too much for the building to carry.¹⁴ Local anecdotes relate to the misuse of funds allocated to building the steeple. Various people including parish priests, curates, etc. are mentioned in regard to this alleged abuse of the O’Loughlin bequest.

The external detailing is extensive and includes the following,

Cutstone strings, barge copings, eave courses, quoins, crosses, window sills, jambs, mullions, tracery, heads, labels and other worked limestone.¹⁵

The main entrance has four polished Galway granite colonettes or narrow pillars on either side with the second order decorated with stone flowers.¹⁶ The doorway is a pointed arch, representative of the gothic. Above the doorway is a sculptured decorated panel or tympanum showing an eagle with flowers, leaves and thistles. St John, ‘The Beloved Disciple’ is often represented by an eagle because it is the only living thing that can look into the sun and St John had insight into the ‘life and mystery’ of the Lord. Images of the eagle are used throughout the church.¹⁷ The motto underneath is S. Johannes Evangelista. It is interesting to compare this tympanum with the one over the doorway in the Church of St Patrick also in Kilkenny City. This church is also attributed to Hague,¹⁸ (completed 1899), but the panel, which is of the Sacred Heart is much less ornate.¹⁹ (pic 4, p 24)

The rose window over the main doorway in St John’s has four lights with three circular roses over in elaborate tracery. (pic. 5, p 25). This is characteristic of gothic. The windows in the side chapels are three light with tracery of one circular rose and are complementary to the main rose window. Above and below the rose window on the outside of the shortened tower is a series of blind arcading. The front buttresses to the tower are reminiscent of the antae of the early Irish Christian churches.²⁰ On either side of the main tower pointed gables hide the lean-to roofs of the side aisles. These are double storey in height and their buttresses are crowned by ornate crocketted pinnacles. The specification given to the builder was

‘Pinnacles with gablets on two faces at the start and a panelled gable face on each side of octagon with a weathered octagon roof.’²¹

Each pinnacle required twenty to twenty four stones.²² These crocketted pinnacles, (spur or hooked shaped ornament like curled leaves or flowers) are replicated throughout the building, both inside and out. They may particularly be seen on the high altar and on the reredos behind it. The outside of the church has many other practical and decorative features, including string courses on the tower and elsewhere, ornate chimney stack, the twin light and single light windows on either side which have hood mouldings ending in circular bosses, (pic. 7, p 27), the sacristy on the southern side which is like a ‘miniature gothic church’²³, the dentil supports for the rain gutters (pic 6, p 26) and the site enclosing wrought iron railings, (by J. and C. McGloughlin of Dublin).²⁴ The McGloughlins were also responsible for the brass communion rails and gates. (pic 12, p 32)²⁵

The rear of the building has a circular five-sided apse or polygonal ambulatory with leaded single light windows and ornate tracery. Again this is very gothic.

This church with its crocketted gables and pinnacles and its foreshortened tower could look frivolous and whimsical or because of the grey limestone even heavy and dour but because of its position on a large, airy elevated site, the tenters field, it seems to float above its surroundings and elevate the spirit of the onlooker.

Interior

As you enter the porch of the church and stand looking up the nave at the high altar you are immediately struck by the western light streaming in through the five stained glass windows in the apse behind the high altar. These are full of sumptuous golds, reds, blues greens and purples giving a warm soft light to the sanctuary area. These windows were made by the firm of Mayer, from Munich, Germany.²⁶ Stained glass from the Mayer company was particularly ‘admired by the ecclesiological reformers of the nineteenth century.²⁷ This stained glass depicts scenes from the Book of Revelation.²⁸ On a summers evening the late sun streaming in makes the term ‘stained glass’ seem very inadequate to describe the beautiful sight greeting the worshipper at vespers. Mayer also supplied the Stations of the Cross at a cost of £252.00.²⁹

The floor in the sanctuary is mosaic. It is a splendid sight and quite magnificent. It has celtic type interlacing with zoomorphic ornament and shows the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John encircling a pelican representing Christ, shown feeding its young with blood from its breast.( pic 8& 9, p 28-9). There are also representations of ‘chalice, host, wheat and wine.’³⁰ The celtic type interlacing and the zoomorphic design of the mosaic show the influence of the Gaelic Revival. The mosaic work was carried out by the firm of Ludwig Oppenheimer who were based in Manchester.³¹ A part of the nave and chancel floor of the Honan Chapel in Cork, also laid by Oppenheimer has similarities to the sanctuary floor in St John’s. ³² The Honan Chapel was completed in 1916 and was designed by James F. McMullen of Cork and built by John Sisk and Son, Cork. Whilst the floor of the Honan Chapel has been described as the ‘most spectacular thing of its type in Ireland’³³ with the ‘actual designer of the floor – anonymous’³⁴ is it not possible that the actual designer was Oppenheimer himself?

The high altar in the sanctuary has been altered following the new practices of Vatican II. Formerly the altar table was attached to the tabernacle. The altar table was built with a candle bench standing behind and in the centre what is described on the plans as a throne.³⁵ This throne contains the tabernacle with its door of hammered brass and like the two side altars this tabernacle is lined with cedar wood and white satin.³⁶ Above the tabernacle there is a marble canopy with red marble pillars. (pic 10, p 30). In the roof of this canopy there is a flying dove, representing the Holy Spirit, which may only be seen when standing in the celebrants position at the altar. There is a pinnacle surmounting the canopy, carried on eight red marble pillars, which is multi-crocketted and reflects the crocketted pinnacles on the outside of the church. The marble pillars and the groining of this canopy together with the crocketted pinnacles are a copy of the very fabric of this church of St John. The sculptor of the high altar, George Smyth of Great Brunswick Street in Dublin,³⁷ obviously took some of his inspiration from the design of William Hague. The altar table has a depiction of the Last Supper as a centre panel with kneeling angels on either side. Both are Carrara marble carved in high relief with even the vessels on the table standing out clearly.³⁸ It is very similar to the altar in the College Chapel, Maynooth.

Behind and separate from the high altar lining the walls of the apse are four carved Caen stone panels depicting scenes from the New Testament. ( pic 11, p 31). These carved stone panels are set in canopied pedestals. The use of Caen stone, (a cream coloured oolitic limestone from Normandy, France), in St John’s has an interesting parallel in St Canice’s Cathedral in Kilkenny. There it is used in ‘a 19^th century tomb of the second Marquis of Ormonde’.³⁹ (It was the third Marquis who donated the land for St John’s). These four Caen stone panels are delicately carved and are most realistic and all have references to the life of St John.⁴⁰ Each panel has at its edge crocketted canopies, six in all, situated between each of the five windows of the apse. In each of these canopies are placed statues of Christ, his mother Mary and the apostles Andrew, Peter, James and John.⁴¹ Again these pinaccled and crocketted canopies are a reflection of the crocketted canopies on the outside of the church.

The ceiling is a groined rib vaulted ceiling in the Gothic style. The groining ribs of white plaster are ridged on their circumference. The ceiling has latterly been painted a deep rose colour, which is very effective. (pic 13 & 13A, p 32). The groin crossings are decorated with beautiful carved bosses that are picked out in gold leaf. These are too far from the ground to be seen clearly by the congregation and are symptomatic of the sumptuousness of the ornamentation, the attention to detail of the architect, Hague, and the wealth available to the O’Loughlin family. The groining ribs are supported on Sicilian marble bases on polished Galway granite colonettes which themselves sit on Portland stone corbels.⁴²

These supporting corbels at clerestory level, sixteen in number, are carved with religious symbols that are decorated in gold leave. Symbols of the crucifixion, papal mitre with crossed keys etc. Again because these are clerestory level they are difficult to see from the floor of the nave but perhaps when the pulpit was in position the preacher, being nearer to these symbols, may have drawn inspiration from them for his sermons.

Work on this pulpit and on the baptismal font was carried out by Edmund Sharp of 42 Great Brunswick St. Dublin. ⁴³

Supporting the columns in the arcade that divide the nave from the side aisles are polished Galway granite on a white marble plinth with capitals of Portland stone.⁴⁴ The organ loft forms a porch over the east doorway and contains a carved arcaded balustrade of pitch pine, which is supported on a single carved beam that runs the entire width of the organ loft. The organ loft and porch were designed by William H Byrne.⁴⁵ This Byrne was the architect who completed the church on the death of Hague.⁴⁶ Byrne also completed the chapter house of St Mary’s Cathedral in Kilkenny that Hague had designed in 1899.⁴⁷ St Mary’s cathedral designed by William Deane Butler with the interior by Early and Powell is described by Jeremy Williams as of ‘Norman inspiration’.⁴⁸ The austereness of St Mary’s provides a total contrast with the sumptuousness of St John’s. Williams describes St John’s as ‘overripe and somewhat exhausted Late Gothic Revival’.⁴⁹ The benches and prie-dieux of St John’s were supplied by Timothy and John Darcy. They were instructed to use ‘picked pitch pine free from sap, shakes and all imperfections.’⁵⁰ T. and J. Darcy also fitted out Tynans Bridge House Bar at John’s Bridge in the City and their excellent work may be seen there to this day. The lampwork, (lighting) was provided by Kilkenny Gasworks under the manager George Anderson.⁵¹

Architect

The principal architect of the church of St John the Evangelist was William Hague. 1836-1899. He was born in Cavan Town on 7 February 1836 the eldest of a family of six.⁵² He was educated locally at St Augustine’s Academy in Cavan town from 1847 to 1853 and then studied architecture in Dublin. In 1862 Hague was elected a fellow of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, (R.I.A.I.), and in the same year he opened an office in 175 Great Brunswick Street, Dublin. In 1872 he moved to 44 Westland Row in Dublin. ⁵³ In the next thirty-seven years, before he died in 1899, he became one of the most successful church architects in Ireland.⁵⁴ William Hague died in 1899 at his home at 21 Mount St and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery in the mausoleum of his wife’s family who were minor Fermanagh gentry; his wife being Annie Vesey Daly.⁵⁵ Although primarily known as a church architect he also designed other religious buildings including the Poor Clare convent, Ballyjamesduff and St Patrick’s College, Cavan. His secular buildings include Hilton Park in Co Monaghan and the Town Hall in Sligo.⁵⁶ Sligo Town Hall, 1866-1870, was in the Venetian style.⁵⁷ His chosen style of architecture was ‘Gothic Revival’ and in this style he was influenced by James Joseph McCarthy, (1817-1882) of whom he may have been a pupil.⁵⁸ McCarthy was ‘somewhat ineptly nicknamed’, according to Maurice Craig, ‘the Irish Pugin’.⁵⁹ Augustus Welby Pugin, (1812-1852), was regarded by many as the greatest architect and designer of the nineteenth century. He had a ‘major influence on Irish Catholic architecture after Catholic Emancipation’.⁶⁰ Pugin influenced McCarthy’s ‘views on church planning and furnishing.’⁶¹ McCarthy assimilated the ideas of John Ruskin and the Ecclesiological Society and was a key member of the Irish Ecclesiological Society.⁶² Hague under his ‘professional mentor’ McCarthy, was encouraged to seek ‘artistic and spiritual inspiration from the buildings of the later Middle Ages’.⁶³ Ciaran Parker lists over one hundred works by William Hague. When J.J McCarthy died Hague completed several of his projects including adding the tower to Monaghan cathedral in 1883.⁶⁴ Hague designed the interior of College Chapel. St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co. Kildare. McCarthy had designed the shell of the building but on his death Hague also added the bell tower and spire.⁶⁵ Again in this collegiate chapel the glass is by Mayer of Munich with the mosaics by Oppenheimer of Manchester.⁶⁶ In Ciaran Parkers list of Hague’s architectural achievements twenty-four counties are represented with work by the architect, Kilkenny being the most southerly. Five of the Ulster counties saw a realisation of his abilities with Leinster and Connacht also represented. Hague was a true ecumenical capitalist, designing and building for Presbyterians, Methodists, Anglicans, Episcopalians, and Catholics. He designed lighthouse keeper’s cottages and commercial banks. He also remodelled shops, built and remodelled convents, altered an archbishop’s palace, (at Drumcondra, Dublin) and was even responsible for the infamous industrial school at Letterfrack, Co Galway.⁶⁷ St Eunan’s Cathedral in Letterkenny (1891-1902) is regarded by Parker as perhaps William Hague’s finest achievement.⁶⁸ This cathedral was completed on his death by T.F. MacNamara. It was the last of the nineteenth century cathedrals.⁶⁹ This building in Letterkenny is described in the ‘Shell guide to Ireland’ as ‘a mediocre, late Gothic Revival structure- tricked out with pseudo Irish-Romanesque details’.⁷⁰ A bit harsh maybe? While St Eunan’s has been described as Late Gothic, St John’s was placed in the Middle Gothic by Dr John Gilmartin. William Hague also built the Chapter House at St Mary’s Cathedral, Kilkenny and the parish church of St Patrick with the adjoining convent for the St John of God Sisters.⁷¹ (Williams describes St Patrick’s as a Late Gothic Revival building by S.F. Hynes of Cork).⁷² It is interesting to compare St John’s church and St Patrick’s. St Patrick’s cost £7.300 to build in 1899.⁷³ The total cost of St John’s, including fitting out was around £50,000.⁷⁴ The spending of seven times the amount of money on St John’s by comparison with St Patrick’s is evident in the fabric and fittings. There are several similarities between the two parish churches including the pattern of the main doorway, (mentioned above), the herring boned pattern of the ceilings in the side aisles and the pattern of the tiles in the aisles. But the differences in the sumptuousness of the furnishings, the detailing of the masonry and plasterwork, the placement of the St John’s on it’s large airy site by comparison with the roadway hemmed site of St Patrick’s are a clear indication of what an architect like William Hague was capable of when allowed generous amounts of funding. The most obvious difference is the ambulatory in St John’s with its magnificent pinaccled and crocketted altar. St John’s is a testament to the abilities of the architect, William Hague, the wealth of Martin O’Loughlin and the influence of Bishop Abraham Brownrigg. The wealth of the O’ Loughlin family and the willingness of nephews Thomas and Martin to spend their Uncle Martin’s money created with William Hague a fitting monument and a place of worship. This contrasted with the unwillingness of the parishioners to reciprocate. In a letter from Bishop Brownrigg to Thomas O’Loughlin, nephew, dated 31 August 1906 the bishop says ‘as far as I can see the parishioners of St John’s manifest no desire to furnish any of the details necessary to complete it’ ⁷⁵

Why should they when, as already mentioned, they had a perfectly good church up the road. But the last word surely belongs to Thomas O’Loughlin the munificent nephew who wrote from Australia in 31 October 1906 to Bishop Brownrigg and stated, ‘I will never be half grateful to Almighty God for his kindness and goodness to me in placing me in possession of a fair share of this worlds wealth.’⁷⁶

Footnotes