General Synod 2017 and five buildings in Limerick: 1, the County Courthouse

The County Courthouse on Merchants’ Quay, Limerick, and faces the great door of Saint Mary’s Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford

The General Synod of the Church of Ireland is meeting in Limerick for three days later this week, from Thursday 4 May to Saturday 6 May.

In the past, I have attended the General Synod in Armagh, Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Galway and Kilkenny, but this is the first time for it to meet in Limerick – and this in the year that I have moved to the Diocese of Limerick, Killaloe and Ardfert, as Priest-in-Charge of the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes and Precentor of the cathedrals in the diocese, including Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick.

The General Synod opens with a celebration of the Eucharist in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, at 10 a.m. on Thursday, and the main meetings are taking place in South Court Hotel.

Since I moved to Co Limerick in January, I have enjoyed exploring the mediaeval and Georgian streets of Limerick, learning about its history, heritage and architecture.

This week, between today and Saturday, I thought it would be interesting to introduce readers to some of these buildings in Limerick. I have written about Saint Mary’s Cathedral and other Limerick churches and buildings in the past. So this week I am looking at five buildings that are no more than five minutes’ walking distance from the cathedral.

My first choice is the County Courthouse on Merchants’ Quay, which faces the west door of Saint Mary’s Cathedral. The courthouse is located on Merchants’ Quay overlooking the River Shannon from the north-east. The site ends at the river’s edge with a limestone block-faced quay wall.

This building was recently renovated redeveloped by Murray O’Laoire Architects, when much work was carried out on the interior and the exterior restored. While the exterior of the building retains much of its original form, the interior had been extensively remodelled in 1957 and any surviving historic details were lost at that time.

Like many provincial courthouses in Ireland, this a handsome building in the classical style. However, it is a less imposing building than many of its contemporaries because it is not elevated over a basement and because it is stands on a flat site.

The exterior is characterised by its finish of dark stone and rendered areas, giving it a distinctive appearance.

In the early 19th century, Lewis wrote: ‘The county court-house, on Merchants’-quay, an elegant structure, completed in 1810, at an expense of £12,000, is a quadrangular building of hewn stone, with a portico, supported by four lofty pillars, and surrounded by a light iron balustrade: it contains civil and criminal courts, jury-rooms, and other offices.’

The foundation stone was laid on 1 September 1807, and the building was still not completed when it was opened in 1809. The portico was completed by July 1814.

The courthouse was designed by Nicholas and William Hannan, who were provincial architects associated with Limerick, and financed by the Grand Jury. The alterations were designed and carried out by Nicholas Hannan in 1814.

The builder brothers Nicholas and William Hannan were active in Limerick, active in the first three decades of the 19th century. They also worked on the courthouse at Bruff, Co Limerick, Limerick County Gaol and Limerick City Gaol.

James Pain, the great Limerick-based architect, and his brother George Richard Pain, carried out the furnishing of the barristers’ room and other proposed alterations in 1820.

The building cost £13,000 and the portico cost a further £700.

This is a detached, quadrangular, five-bay, two-storey rendered courthouse with giant Doric pilasters. It was built in 1809 and the limestone ashlar tetrastyle Tuscan portico to the north-east facing front elevation was added in 1817.

This is an historically important structure in its own right and because of its location. When it was built, it marked the demise of the old port as anything other than a place for small boats to unload. But it also brought the county courthouse into the heart of the city – the earlier courthouse stood on the site a ruined abbey outside the city walls. Its location is further enhanced by its close proximity to Saint Mary’s Cathedral.

Tomorrow: Gerald Griffin Memorial Schools.

A May Day walk by an old railway line with swallows, Aristotle and a light sabre

The old railway line and railway station south of Askeaton, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford

There is an aphorism that ‘one swallow does not a summer make.’ The saying is based on an observation by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics (Ἠθικὰ Νικομάχεια):

‘The good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue, or if there be several human excellences or virtues, in conformity with the best and most perfect among them. One swallow does not a summer make, nor one fine day; similarly, neither can one day or brief time of happiness does not make one blessed and happy’ (Nicomachean Ethics, I.7.1098a).

But May Day is supposed to be the first day of summer, and there was a large cluster of swallows – a dozen or more – swirling and swooping across the fields and roads as I walked out of Askeaton this afternoon, passing the old quarry and the Kingspan factory, walking on south through fields of green, with grazing cattle and horses, as far as the old railway station and the old railway line.

The former railway station building south of Askeaton, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

The detached former railway station building, now in use as a house, was built around 1857. It is a three-bay, single-storey block with a gable-fronted projecting single-bay one-and-half-storey west bay, and a lean-to to the west of the elevation. There is a gabled outbuilding to the west of the building.

There is still an old station platform to the south of the building, and the old railway track is still in position to the south of the platform, a square-profile water tower and a double-height machinery shed to the west of the station building.

This station house was in use on the Limerick to Foynes railway line until 2003, with a resident station master. The building retains its original form and is characteristic of railway stations of the early Victorian period.

Like the old Harcourt Street line in Dublin, this railway line could be renovated with some imagination, and as a suburban railway line from Limerick, like the DART or the Luas in Dublin, it could breathe new life into this part of west Limerick, and to Limerick city too.

Meeting a horse and rider on the way back into Askeaton this afternoon (Photograph: Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Walking back into Askeaton, I basked in the early summer sunshine, enjoying the company of horses and swallows, I recalled past May Days spent in Beaumaris, Portmeirion and Llfair PG in Wales last year, in Madrid in 2009, and in Bucharest in 1991. And I recalled too that today, as well as being May Day and the first day of summer, is also the Feast of Saint Philip and James in the Anglican calendar, although they are celebrated on 3 May in the Calendar of the Roman Catholic Church.

Saint Philip and Saint James appear in the list of the twelve apostles in the first three Gospels but are frequently confused with other early saints who share their names. In Saint John’s Gospel, Saint Philip has a more prominent rôle, being the third of the apostles to be called by Christ and then himself bringing his friend Nathanael to the Lord.

Saint Philip is the spokesman for the other apostles who are questioning the capacity for feeding the 5,000 and, at the Last Supper, enters into a sort of dialogue with Christ that leads to the Farewell Discourses in the Fourth Gospel. Saint James is said to be the son of Alphaeus, and is often known as ‘James the Less’ to distinguish him. He may also be the ‘James the Younger’ who, in Saint Mark’s Gospel, is a witness to the Crucifixion.

They are celebrated on the same day because the church in Rome, where their relics rest, was dedicated on this day in the year 560.

An ancient inscription shows the Basilica of the Twelve Apostles in Rome had an earlier dedication to Philip and James. In Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure (III, ii, 204), a child’s age is given as ‘a year and a quarter old, come Philip and Jacob,’ meaning, ‘a year and a quarter old on the first of next May, the feast of Philip and James.’

There is Pip ’n Jay Church in Bristol, whose official dedication is to these two saints as Saint Philip and Saint Jacob. But this day has also given us the word ‘popinjay’ for a vain or conceited person or ‘fop.’

Yet, despite the cultural legacy they have left us, the Philip and James we remember today are, to a great degree, small-bit players – almost anonymous or forgotten – in the New Testament, and in the Church calendar.

The Western Church commemorates James the Greater on 25 July, James the Brother of the Lord on 23 or 25 October, but James the Less has no day for himself, he shares it with Philip, on 1 May. Philip the Apostle, who has to share this commemoration, is frequently confused with Philip the Deacon (Acts 6: 7; 8: 5-40; 21: 8 ff) – but Philip the Deacon has his own day on 6 June or 11 October. Indeed, apart from sharing a day, Philip and James have also been transferred this year because yesterday was Ascension Day.

The James we remember today is James, the Son of Alphaeus. We know nothing about this James, apart from the fact that Jesus called him to be one of the 12. He is not James, the Brother of the Lord, later Bishop of Jerusalem and the traditional author of the Letter of James. Nor is he James the son of Zebedee, also an apostle and known as James the Greater. He appears on lists of the 12 – usually in the ninth place – but is never mentioned otherwise.

Yet, despite the near-anonymity of James and the weaknesses in Philip, these two became foundation pillars in the Church. They display total human helplessness yet become apostles who bring the Good News into the world. Indeed, from the very beginning, Philip has an oft-forgotten role in bringing people to Christ. Perhaps because he had a Greek name, some Gentile proselytes came and asked him to introduce them to Christ.

We see in James and Philip, ordinary, weak, everyday human men who, nevertheless, became pillars of the Church at its very foundation.

Perhaps because they are often seen as such ordinary, even weak, men among the apostles, I was surprised the week before last to see that in his statue on the West Front of Lichfield Cathedral, Saint James the Less appears to be holding a light sabre.

But no, he has not declared ‘Jedi’ as his religion on the census returns. He is, in fact, holding a book and club, which are his traditional symbols, but the copper handle of the broom has changed in colour with the weather – another reminder that summer is on the way.

Saint James the Less with his ‘light sabre’ on the west façade of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Collect:

Almighty Father,
whom truly to know is eternal life:
teach us to know your Son Jesus Christ
as the way, the truth, and the life;
that we may follow the steps of your holy apostles
Philip and James,
and walk steadfastly in the way that leads to your glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.