The two-page centrefold spread in the ‘Diocesan Magazine’ in November (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Patrick Comerford
My monthly column in the November editions of two diocesan magazines – the Church Review (Dublin and Glendalough) and the Diocesan Magazine (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory) – looks back on my visit three months ago to the Acropolis in Athens and the new Acropolis Museum, and argues for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Athens.
The two magazines are printed in different formats, so these columns normally receive a two-page spread in the Church Review and run over six pages in the Diocesan Magazine.
This month, the editor of the Diocesan Magazine, the Revd Patrick Burke of Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny, has supplemented my column and photographs with an extra two-page centrefold spread, using some of my photographs from Athens.
But more about this on Sunday afternoon [5 November 2017].
03 November 2017
Shop fronts tell tales
of a once prosperous
past in Ballingary
Main Street, Ballingarry, Co Limerick … the colourful shopfronts illustrate how this was once a thriving market town (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Patrick Comerford
Walking around Ballingarry one afternoon earlier this week, the places of immediate architectural interest included the two parish churches, the former Church of Ireland parish church and JJ McCarthy’s Gothic Revival Church of the Immaculate Conception, and two dominant houses of historical interest, the ruins of Ballingarry Castle or Parson’s Castle and The Turret, with its Dutch gable and the curious tale of its Cross and three Crescents.
But this sleepy Co Limerick village also has a number and shops and interesting commercial and domestic buildings that from the early and mid-19th century that illustrate how Ballingarry was once a thriving market town until the Victorian era and the Great Famine.
Aherns and Burkes … the lettering on these paired former shopfronts indicate how Ballingarry was once a prosperous shopping town (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
The sign at Trainor’s Bar on Main Street says it was founded in 1820, but other signs on the windows indicate that Ballingarry once had its own hotel long before the Mustard Seed opened in the former convent.
The raised letterings, entablatures and fascia boards on façades indicate how many once busy shops and public houses have closed in recent decades or have been converted into private residences.
Aidan Quaid’s on the corner of Main Street and Knight Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Aidan Quaid’s Fitted Furniture business, which stands on the prominent corner of Main Street and Knight Street, near the bridge, may have been a pub in the past, judging by its appearance and its location.
This is an end-of-terrace, three-bay three-storey premises and was built around 1840. The front of the shop and house has a render shopfront. There is a pitched slate roof with rendered chimney-stacks, there are rendered walls and render quoins, and the square-headed windows have moulded render surrounds and painted sills, while the square-headed door opening has a timber panelled door, a moulded render surround and a glazed over-light.
The three-part shopfront has render pilasters, scrolled consoles with acanthus style motifs supporting the moulded render entablature over a render fascia with raised lettering.
This is a substantial building with a strong façade that has many artistic details and its solid massing and decorative render elements make this building stand out in Ballingarry.
Sheehy’s, opposite the gates of the former Church of Ireland parish church, has an attractive shopfront (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Sheehy’s is an earlier, terraced, three-bay two-storey house and former shop that was built around 1800. It stands on the Main Street, opposite the gate and tower of the former Church of Ireland parish church and one time also served as the post office.
The building has a timber shopfront, a pitched slate roof with rendered chimney-stacks, lined-and-ruled rendered walls with render quoins, a half-glazed timber panelled door, one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows and painted stone sills.
The still-attractive shopfront is in three parts, with timber engaged columns supporting the entablature over the fascia with raised lettering. The round-headed fixed windows have carved timber surrounds, the square-headed opening is flanked by timber engaged columns and there are timber battened double-leaf doors.
Quaid’s Corner House and Barret’s form an interesting corner at Main Street and Pound Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Further up Main Street, on the corner with Pound Street, Quaid’s Corner House is another pub in the town with raised lettering and attractive signage, and it forms a colourful corner on the streetscape alongside Barrett’s next door.
A six-bay house with dormer windows … probably built as a separate shop and house (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
On the hill. leading up to the Turret and McCarthy’s church, a long pink house with dormer windows is one of the many unusual private family homes in the town.
This house may have been built first as two separate houses, and the ground floor window and door arrangement suggests that the building may have once been a shop or pub.
This terraced, six-bay, single-storey house with two dormer windows was built around 1840. The house has rendered chimneystacks and carved timber bargeboards with finials to the dormer windows. The rendered walls have render quoins at the north end-bay.
The windows have square-headed openings with decorative render surrounds, painted stone sills and one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows. An interesting square-headed display window has a bipartite fixed window and tripartite overlight. The square-headed windows in the dormer attic have one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows and timber surrounds with recessed panels.
Throughout the town, there are many other attractive and often half-hidden Georgian, Regency and early Victorian houses that could benefit from further attention by architectural historians.
One of the many pretty half-hidden Georgian and Regency houses on the streets of Ballingarry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Patrick Comerford
Walking around Ballingarry one afternoon earlier this week, the places of immediate architectural interest included the two parish churches, the former Church of Ireland parish church and JJ McCarthy’s Gothic Revival Church of the Immaculate Conception, and two dominant houses of historical interest, the ruins of Ballingarry Castle or Parson’s Castle and The Turret, with its Dutch gable and the curious tale of its Cross and three Crescents.
But this sleepy Co Limerick village also has a number and shops and interesting commercial and domestic buildings that from the early and mid-19th century that illustrate how Ballingarry was once a thriving market town until the Victorian era and the Great Famine.
Aherns and Burkes … the lettering on these paired former shopfronts indicate how Ballingarry was once a prosperous shopping town (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
The sign at Trainor’s Bar on Main Street says it was founded in 1820, but other signs on the windows indicate that Ballingarry once had its own hotel long before the Mustard Seed opened in the former convent.
The raised letterings, entablatures and fascia boards on façades indicate how many once busy shops and public houses have closed in recent decades or have been converted into private residences.
Aidan Quaid’s on the corner of Main Street and Knight Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Aidan Quaid’s Fitted Furniture business, which stands on the prominent corner of Main Street and Knight Street, near the bridge, may have been a pub in the past, judging by its appearance and its location.
This is an end-of-terrace, three-bay three-storey premises and was built around 1840. The front of the shop and house has a render shopfront. There is a pitched slate roof with rendered chimney-stacks, there are rendered walls and render quoins, and the square-headed windows have moulded render surrounds and painted sills, while the square-headed door opening has a timber panelled door, a moulded render surround and a glazed over-light.
The three-part shopfront has render pilasters, scrolled consoles with acanthus style motifs supporting the moulded render entablature over a render fascia with raised lettering.
This is a substantial building with a strong façade that has many artistic details and its solid massing and decorative render elements make this building stand out in Ballingarry.
Sheehy’s, opposite the gates of the former Church of Ireland parish church, has an attractive shopfront (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Sheehy’s is an earlier, terraced, three-bay two-storey house and former shop that was built around 1800. It stands on the Main Street, opposite the gate and tower of the former Church of Ireland parish church and one time also served as the post office.
The building has a timber shopfront, a pitched slate roof with rendered chimney-stacks, lined-and-ruled rendered walls with render quoins, a half-glazed timber panelled door, one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows and painted stone sills.
The still-attractive shopfront is in three parts, with timber engaged columns supporting the entablature over the fascia with raised lettering. The round-headed fixed windows have carved timber surrounds, the square-headed opening is flanked by timber engaged columns and there are timber battened double-leaf doors.
Quaid’s Corner House and Barret’s form an interesting corner at Main Street and Pound Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Further up Main Street, on the corner with Pound Street, Quaid’s Corner House is another pub in the town with raised lettering and attractive signage, and it forms a colourful corner on the streetscape alongside Barrett’s next door.
A six-bay house with dormer windows … probably built as a separate shop and house (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
On the hill. leading up to the Turret and McCarthy’s church, a long pink house with dormer windows is one of the many unusual private family homes in the town.
This house may have been built first as two separate houses, and the ground floor window and door arrangement suggests that the building may have once been a shop or pub.
This terraced, six-bay, single-storey house with two dormer windows was built around 1840. The house has rendered chimneystacks and carved timber bargeboards with finials to the dormer windows. The rendered walls have render quoins at the north end-bay.
The windows have square-headed openings with decorative render surrounds, painted stone sills and one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows. An interesting square-headed display window has a bipartite fixed window and tripartite overlight. The square-headed windows in the dormer attic have one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows and timber surrounds with recessed panels.
Throughout the town, there are many other attractive and often half-hidden Georgian, Regency and early Victorian houses that could benefit from further attention by architectural historians.
One of the many pretty half-hidden Georgian and Regency houses on the streets of Ballingarry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
McCarthy’s church in Ballingarry
is one of his architectural gems
The Church of the Immaculate Conception in Ballingarry is one of a handful of churches in Co Limerick designed by JJ McCarthy (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Patrick Comerford
The Church of the Immaculate Conception in Ballingarry is one of a handful of churches in Co Limerick designed by AWN Pugin’s Irish successor, James Joseph McCarthy (1817-1882).
McCarthy’s other churches in Co Limerick include Saint Saviour’s Dominican Church in Baker’s Place, Limerick; Saint Senanus Church, Foynes; Saint Mary’s Church, Rathkeale; and the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Kilmallock. He also remodelled and enlarged the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Newcastle West and designed Cahermoyle House for the family of William Smith O’Brien.
McCarthy completed Pugin’s work at Maynooth and Saint Mary’s Cathedral in Killarney, and his other cathedrals and churches include Saint Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, Saint Macartan’s Cathedral, Monaghan, the Cathedral of the Assumption, Thurles, Saint Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, the ‘Twin Churches’ in Wexford, Saint Catherine’s Church, Dublin, and the Passionist Church in Mount Argus.
The spire of McCarthy’s church in Ballingarry can be seen for miles around. This is a fine late 19th century church, prominently sited, and it continues to have a strong presence in the Ballingarry streetscape, providing a focus in the area.
The church was built on the site of an earlier T-plan Catholic chapel in Ballingarry, and was dedicated in 1879. The coherent decorative scheme is marked by its elaborate tower that unifies the Gothic style of the building. The rusticated masonry, which was popular in church architecture of the time, adds a textural interest, balanced by the tooled limestone dressings.
Inside the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Ballingarry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
The interior reflects the Gothic style of the exterior and is also highly decorative, with ornate tiling on the floor and sophisticated carpentry in the roof. The mosaics on the chancel walls and the ornate corbels further enliven the interior. The arcade of finely carved marble columns adds another element of richness and colour to the interior of the church. The piers and gates at the front of the church are highly ornate and continue the Gothic Revival idiom of the site.
According to Patrick J O’Connor, in his Exploring Limerick’s Past, the first Roman Catholic Church at Ballingarry stood on the same site from the early 18th century.
When Father James Enraght was appointed parish priest of Ballingarry in 1851, he was in America raising money to build a new church in his then parish of Askeaton. He then started building a new church in Ballingarry, and the foundation stone was laid in 1872.
But Father Enraght was moved onto Parteen in 1874 before the church was finished, and he was succeeded by Father Timothy Shanahan, who supervised the completion of the new church, which was consecrated on 7 September 1879.
The High Altar is the work of Edmund Sharp (1853-1930), and in 1890s Pugin’s son-in-law George Coppinger Ashlin (1837-1921) drafted proposals for a ‘throne’ to the High Altar. The builder was Michael Walsh of Foynes, who also worked with McCarthy on this churches in Foynes, Rathkeale and Kilmallock.
The timber scissors truss ceiling in the church in Ballingarry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
The church has an eight-bay nave, two transepts, a hexagonal turret, a gable-fronted porch, a four-stage square-plan battered tower, and a gable-fronted chancel with flanking side chapels. There is a four-bay side aisle, a single-storey over basement sacristy and a canted side chapel.
The pitched slate roof has a fish-scale pattern, cast-iron ridge crestings, limestone brackets and limestone copings with cross finials. The sacristy has a limestone chimney-stack.
The church has rusticated sandstone walls with tooled limestone quoins, buttresses, limestone plaques, trefoil-headed lancet stained-glass windows with limestone hood-mouldings, and Corinthian style columns with banded marble shafts, timber panelled doors with ornate cast-iron strap hinges, and a timber scissors truss ceiling.
The chapels and transepts have oculi, the entrance has a timber gallery, and the floors have geometric tiles. The sandstone and limestone tower has limestone turrets and a cast-iron spire.
The stained glass panel of Saint Patrick commemorating Archdeacon Patrick Lyons (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Father Ronald Costelloe restored the church in 1991. On the inside doors of the church, there are stained glass panels of Saint Patrick and Saint Ita to commemorate the 100th birthday of Archdeacon Patrick Lyons in 1993.
The priests of the parish buried here include Father William Downes (PP 1894-1901), who is buried inside the church, and Canon Thomas Wall (PP 1936-1956), Archdeacon Patrick Lyons (PP 1956-1982) and Father Gerard MacNamee (PP 1982-1988), who are buried in the churchyard.
Father James Enraght is remembered in a plaque on the wall of the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Patrick Comerford
The Church of the Immaculate Conception in Ballingarry is one of a handful of churches in Co Limerick designed by AWN Pugin’s Irish successor, James Joseph McCarthy (1817-1882).
McCarthy’s other churches in Co Limerick include Saint Saviour’s Dominican Church in Baker’s Place, Limerick; Saint Senanus Church, Foynes; Saint Mary’s Church, Rathkeale; and the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Kilmallock. He also remodelled and enlarged the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Newcastle West and designed Cahermoyle House for the family of William Smith O’Brien.
McCarthy completed Pugin’s work at Maynooth and Saint Mary’s Cathedral in Killarney, and his other cathedrals and churches include Saint Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, Saint Macartan’s Cathedral, Monaghan, the Cathedral of the Assumption, Thurles, Saint Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, the ‘Twin Churches’ in Wexford, Saint Catherine’s Church, Dublin, and the Passionist Church in Mount Argus.
The spire of McCarthy’s church in Ballingarry can be seen for miles around. This is a fine late 19th century church, prominently sited, and it continues to have a strong presence in the Ballingarry streetscape, providing a focus in the area.
The church was built on the site of an earlier T-plan Catholic chapel in Ballingarry, and was dedicated in 1879. The coherent decorative scheme is marked by its elaborate tower that unifies the Gothic style of the building. The rusticated masonry, which was popular in church architecture of the time, adds a textural interest, balanced by the tooled limestone dressings.
Inside the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Ballingarry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
The interior reflects the Gothic style of the exterior and is also highly decorative, with ornate tiling on the floor and sophisticated carpentry in the roof. The mosaics on the chancel walls and the ornate corbels further enliven the interior. The arcade of finely carved marble columns adds another element of richness and colour to the interior of the church. The piers and gates at the front of the church are highly ornate and continue the Gothic Revival idiom of the site.
According to Patrick J O’Connor, in his Exploring Limerick’s Past, the first Roman Catholic Church at Ballingarry stood on the same site from the early 18th century.
When Father James Enraght was appointed parish priest of Ballingarry in 1851, he was in America raising money to build a new church in his then parish of Askeaton. He then started building a new church in Ballingarry, and the foundation stone was laid in 1872.
But Father Enraght was moved onto Parteen in 1874 before the church was finished, and he was succeeded by Father Timothy Shanahan, who supervised the completion of the new church, which was consecrated on 7 September 1879.
The High Altar is the work of Edmund Sharp (1853-1930), and in 1890s Pugin’s son-in-law George Coppinger Ashlin (1837-1921) drafted proposals for a ‘throne’ to the High Altar. The builder was Michael Walsh of Foynes, who also worked with McCarthy on this churches in Foynes, Rathkeale and Kilmallock.
The timber scissors truss ceiling in the church in Ballingarry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
The church has an eight-bay nave, two transepts, a hexagonal turret, a gable-fronted porch, a four-stage square-plan battered tower, and a gable-fronted chancel with flanking side chapels. There is a four-bay side aisle, a single-storey over basement sacristy and a canted side chapel.
The pitched slate roof has a fish-scale pattern, cast-iron ridge crestings, limestone brackets and limestone copings with cross finials. The sacristy has a limestone chimney-stack.
The church has rusticated sandstone walls with tooled limestone quoins, buttresses, limestone plaques, trefoil-headed lancet stained-glass windows with limestone hood-mouldings, and Corinthian style columns with banded marble shafts, timber panelled doors with ornate cast-iron strap hinges, and a timber scissors truss ceiling.
The chapels and transepts have oculi, the entrance has a timber gallery, and the floors have geometric tiles. The sandstone and limestone tower has limestone turrets and a cast-iron spire.
The stained glass panel of Saint Patrick commemorating Archdeacon Patrick Lyons (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Father Ronald Costelloe restored the church in 1991. On the inside doors of the church, there are stained glass panels of Saint Patrick and Saint Ita to commemorate the 100th birthday of Archdeacon Patrick Lyons in 1993.
The priests of the parish buried here include Father William Downes (PP 1894-1901), who is buried inside the church, and Canon Thomas Wall (PP 1936-1956), Archdeacon Patrick Lyons (PP 1956-1982) and Father Gerard MacNamee (PP 1982-1988), who are buried in the churchyard.
Father James Enraght is remembered in a plaque on the wall of the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
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