08 October 2024

‘God on a Bike’ and
the architect who
designed Hatch Hall
for the Jesuits in Dublin

University Hall, also known as Hatch Hall, on Hatch Street, was an integral part of students life in Dublin for over a century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

University Hall, also known as Hatch Hall, on Hatch Street, was an integral part of students life in Dublin for over a century, and is an impressive part of Dublin’s architectural heritage.

Since it closed, the former Jesuit-run university hall has been used as accommodation for asylum seekers and there are plans today to turn it into a 60-bedroom 5-star hotel.

Hatch Hall dominates this corner close to the junction where Lower Hatch Street, Lower Leeson Street and Upper Pembroke Street meet. It its heyday as student accommodation, Hatch Hall was close to University College Dublin, then on Earlsfort Terrace, and it is close to University Church and Newman House on St Stephen’s Green, to nightlife in Leeson Street and Harcourt Street, and to the Iveagh Gardens and Grafton Street.

Hatch Hall was designed in 1910 by the Dublin architect Charles B Powell (1881-1956) in a late-Victorian and Gothic Revival style and the building offers an interesting contrast to the predominantly simple Georgian architecture of the houses and buildings in this quarter of Dublin.

Charles B Powell was born Co Dublin, a younger son of the English-born stained-glass artist and church decorated Henry Powell (1835-1882), and his wife Ellen (McCormack). Henry Powell was a partner in Hardman and Powell studios, which worked closely with AWN Pugin, and was a nephew of the Birmingham ecclesiastical decorator John Hardman and a brother-in-law of Edward Welby Pugin’s sister Anne, who married John Hardman Powell. Henry set up the Hardman studios in Grafton Street in 1853, and the business continued as Earley & Powells.

Charles Powell was an infant when his father died in 1882. He went to school in Blackrock College, and may have been trained as architect by George Coppinger Ashlin.

Powell became something of a recluse in later life, living with his widowed mother until about 1940 and then living alone and working from his home on Maxwell Road, Rathmines, where his two dogs ‘protected him fervently’. A bearded figure who rode around Dublin on a bicycle, he was known as ‘God on a bike’.

His connections with the Hardman, Pugin and Ashlin families introduced him to the church clients who gave him with most of his commissions, including churches throughout Ireland and at least one church in England: Saint Mary’s Catholic Church in St Helen’s, Lancashire.

Powell was the favoured architect of the Dublin Jesuits in Dublin designing extensions for Rathfarnham Castle, and alteration at Belvedere College and Milltown Park. He also worked for the Carmelites at Aungier Street and Terenure College, the gates of the Passionist Monastery at Mount Argus, and on a number of convents, as well as works for the Neptune Rowing Club.

The central gable-fronted five-storey entrance front has carved limestone copings and a cross finial at its apex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

At first, Francis Bergin was approached to design the new hall. But in 1911 the Jesuits commissioned Powell to design their University Hostel in Hatch Street, a Gothic building in bright red brick, rising conspicuously above the neighbouring terraces.

The nine-bay four-storey residential hall was built by W Connolly & Son of Dominick Street in 1910-1913. The central gable-fronted five-storey entrance front has carved limestone copings and a cross finial at its apex and is flanked by full-height octagonal turrets to north or front elevation. The segmental-headed carriage-arch has a carved limestone cornice and a decorative wrought-iron double-leaf gate, with Tudor rose detail. The decorative tympanum has a shield with a gold leaf IHS monogram.

There is a 12-bay return to the east, and a 13-bay two-storey rear south block incorporating a five-bay, bow-ended first floor chapel and enclosing a courtyard.

Other features include attic accommodation, a canted oriel corner bay, canted oriel windows, turrets. Pointed arches, a pitched slate roof with clay ridge tiles, a red brick parapet with limestone coping, stepped red-brick chimneystacks with limestone copings, stepped red brick cornices, gabled dormer windows with timber bargeboards, conical copper roofs and finials on the turrets, copper gable-fronted projections, gargoyles and wrought-iron railings.

The north façade is particularly fine, with limestone detailing used to good effect to provide a contrast with the warm red brick, as well as emphasising the horizontal lines, and its copper and crenellated turret roofs punctuating he skyline.

The five lancet windows in the chapel commemorating Joseph Dolan were commissioned by the Jesuit Aubrey Gwynn and made in 1947 by Evie Hone (1894-1955). The windows depict the Lamb, the Fish, the Pelican, the Dove and the Alpha and Omega.

The decorative wrought-iron double-leaf gate, with Tudor rose detail and a decorative tympanum with a shield with a gold leaf IHS monogram (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Jesuits opened University Hall or Hatch Hall in in 1913, and it provided accommodation for third level male students, mainly at UCD when it was based around the corner at Earlsfort Terrace, until the hall closed 20 years ago in 2004.

The Jesuits promoted a spirit of 'Friendship, Faith, Involvement', and the hall was well known for its community spirit. The hall’s motto was Sic Luceat Lux Vestra, ‘In this way let your light shine’.

Initially, Hatch Hall accommodated 70 students, a dean and other officials at the turn of the century. At first, the students were mostly studying medicine in UCD. But the intake grew progressively larger throughout the 20th century to over 100 male students a year.

The hall supported a number of societies including film, debating and photography societies, and encouraged voluntary work in the community through local charities and homework clubs. The highlight of the hall’s calendar was the annual ‘Hatch Ball’ in the Shelbourne Hotel on Saint Stephen’s Green. Past residents have included Desmond O’Malley, founder and former leader of the Progressive Democrats, the former Taoiseach Brian Cowen and Michael O’Leary, Ryanair CEO.

When Hatch Hall closed in 2004, it was bought for €16 million by the property developer Gerry Barrett. He planned to develop the hall into a hotel, but permission for an 81-bedroom hotel was overturned. Later the building served as a direct provision centre, with accommodation for 365 asylum seekers and refugees.

The building was bought by Red Carnation Hotels for €20 million in 2019, with plans to convert it into a 5-star boutique hotel. In 2013, the landmark building was sold yet again for €23 million, to Rosado Developments, a Wexford-based company. The property came with planning permission for conversion into a 60-bedroom luxury hotel with a gross floor area of 7,292 square metres.

Meanwhile, the five Evie Hone windows have been relocated from the chapel in University Hall to the Ignatian Room to Saint Francis Xavier Church, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin. According to the author and historian Frank Rogers says the windows are some of the best examples in Ireland of religious icons in stained glass.

The Jesuits were among Evie Hone’s main patrons, and some of her finest windows are in the Jesuit Retreat House, Manresa, in Dollymount, where they were moved when the Retreat House in Rahan, Co Offaly, closed in 1991.

Hatch Hall was sold last year for for €23 million with planning permission for conversion into a 60-bedroom luxury hotel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024:
150, Tuesday 8 October 2024

Christ in the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus … a panel in the Herkenrode glass windows in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and the week began with the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIX).

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

The East Window in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Watford, Northamptonshire, shows Christ in the home of Mary and Martha (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 10: 38-42 (NRSVA):

38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ 41 But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary by Diego Velázquez (1630)

Today’s Reflection:

Saint Luke’s story of the meal that Jesus has with his friends Mary and Martha is not found in the other synoptic gospels, and the only other parallel is in the Fourth Gospel, where Jesus visits Mary and Martha after the death of Lazarus.

So the meals Jesus has with Mary and Martha must be understood in the light of the Resurrection, which is prefigured by the raising of Lazarus from the dead.

For many women, and for many men too, the story of the meal with Martha and Mary raises many problems, often created by the agenda with which we now approach this story, but an agenda that may not have been possible to imagine when Saint Luke’s Gospel was written.

Our approach to understanding and explaining this meal very often depends on the way in which I understand Martha and the busy round of activities that have her distracted, and that cause her to complain to Jesus about her sister’s apparent lack of zeal and activity.

These activities in the Greek are described as Martha’s service – she is the deacon at the table: where the NRSV says ‘But Martha was distracted by her many tasks,’ the Greek says: ἡ δὲ Μάρθα περιεσπᾶτο περὶ πολλὴν διακονίαν (‘But Martha was being distracted by much diaconal work, service at the table’).

Quite often, when this story is told, over and over, again and again, it is told as if Martha is getting stroppy about having to empty the dishwasher while Mary is lazing, sitting around, chattering with Jesus.

Does Martha see that Mary should only engage in kitchen work too?

Does she think, perhaps, that only Lazarus should be out at the front of the house, keeping Jesus engaged in lads’ batter about the latest match between Bethany United and Jerusalem City?

Is Jesus being too dismissive of Martha’s complaints?

Or is he defending Mary’s right to engage in a full discussion of the Word, to engage in an alive ministry of the Word?

Martha is presented in this story as the dominant, leading figure. It is she who takes the initiative and who welcomes Jesus into her home (verse 38). It is she who offers the hospitality, who is the host at the meal, who is the head of the household – in fact, Lazarus isn’t even on the stage for this scene, and Mary is merely ‘her sister’ – very much the junior partner in the household.

Yet it is Mary, the figure on the margins, who offers the sort of hospitality that Jesus commends and praises.

Mary simply listens to Jesus, sitting at his feet, like a student would sit at the feet of a great rabbi or teacher, waiting and willing to learn what is being taught.

Martha is upset about this, and comes out from the back and asks Jesus to pack off Mary to the kitchen where she can help Martha.

But perhaps Martha was being too busy with her household tasks.

I was once invited to dinner by people I knew as good friends. And for a long time I was left on my own with the other guest as the couple busied themselves with things in the kitchen – they had decided to do the washing up before bringing out the coffee … the wife knew that if she left the washing up until later, the husband would shirk his share of the task.

But being left on our own was a little embarrassing. Part of the joy of being invited to someone’s home for dinner is the conversation around the table.

When I have been on retreats, at times, in Greek Orthodox monasteries, conversation at the table has been discouraged by a monk reading, usually from the writings of the Early Fathers, from the Patristic writings.

But a good meal, good table fellowship, good hospitality is not just about the food that is served, but about the conversation around the table too.

One commentator suggests that Martha has gone overboard in her duties of hospitality. She has spent too much time preparing the food, and has failed to pay real attention to her guest.

On the other hand, Mary has chosen her activity (verse 42). It does not just happen by accident. Mary has chosen to offer Jesus the real hospitality that a guest should be offered. She talks to Jesus, and real conversation is about both talking and listening.

If she is sent back into the kitchen, then – in the absence of Lazarus, indeed, in the notable absence of the disciples – Jesus would be left without hospitality, without words of welcome, without conversation.

Perhaps Martha might have been better off she had a more simple lifestyle, if she had prepared just one dish for her guest and for her family – might I be bold enough to suggest, if she had been content for them to sup on bread and wine alone.

She could have joined Mary in her hospitality, in welcoming Jesus to their home and to their table; they could have been in full communion with one another.

In this way, Martha will experience what her sister is experiencing, but which she is too busy to notice – their visitor’s invitation into the hospitality of God.

One commentator, Brendan Byrne, points out the subtle point being made in this story:

‘Frenetic service, even service of the Lord, can be a deceptive distraction from what the Lord really wants. Luke has already warned that the grasp of the word can be choked by the cares and worries of life … Here the cares and worries seem well justified – are they not in the service of the Lord? But precisely therein lies the power of the temptation, the great deceit. True hospitality – even that given directly to the Lord – attends to what the guest really wants.’

‘Christ at the home of Martha and Mary,’ Georg Friedrich Stettner (1639)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 8 October 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is the ‘Humanitarian Corridors project in Leuven, Belgium.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Rebecca Breekveldt, Second Secretary, Central Committee of the Anglican Church in Belgium.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 8 October 2024) invites us to pray:

We pray for strength and peace for the families welcomed as they navigate the countless obstacles of resettling in a country so far from home.

The Collect:

O God, forasmuch as without you
we are not able to please you;
mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Holy and blessed God,
you have fed us with the body and blood of your Son
and filled us with your Holy Spirit:
may we honour you,
not only with our lips
but in lives dedicated to the service
of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Faithful Lord,
whose steadfast love never ceases
and whose mercies never come to an end:
grant us the grace to trust you
and to receive the gifts of your love,
new every morning,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The Risen Christ with Mary of Bethany (left) and Mary Magdalene (right) … a stained glass window in Saint Nicholas’s Church, Adare, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org