Patrick Comerford
During last week’s return visit to Dublin, two of us stayed in Keavan’s Port Hotel on Camden Street, originally the premises of the Earley and Powell stained glass studios and the Dublin branch Hardman’s of Birmingham.
During our visit, I also visited 37 Wexford Street, where Robert Croker or Robert Noonan, the author of The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, best-known by his pen name Robert Tressell was born in 1870.
Robert Tressell was baptised in Saint Kevin’s Church on Harrington Street, and that church also has an impressive collection of stained-glass windows from the Earley and Powell stained glass studios.
The church is a three-minute walk (270 metres) around the corner from Camden Street, so I took the opportunity to revisit the church early in the morning.
Saint Kevin’s Church and the presbytery next door fill a large site bordered by Harrington Street on the south side, Heytesbury Street on the west, Synge Street on the east and Synge Street CBS schools to the north.
Saint Kevin’s Church is a prime example of Gothic Revival architecture in Dublin in the late 19th century. It was designed by Pugin and Ashlin at a time when their partnership was breaking up, and the Early and Powell studios had a direct link with Hardmans of Birmingham, who worked closely with AWN Pugin.
The name of the church comes from the mediaeval church, Saint Kevin’s, nearby in Camden Row, which dated back to at least the 12th century, and which was the Church of Ireland parish church.
Saint Kevin’s Parish was formed out of Saint Catherine’s Parish between 1855 and 1865. A site from a new church first leased from James Perrin and then bought through Hugh Lundy. The building committee was chaired by Sir James Power, who also chaired the committee for building Saint Catherine’s Church on Meath Street.
The new Saint Kevin’s Church was built between 1868 and 1872. By a vote of 14-2, Pugin and Ashlin were the winners of the architectural competition between themselves and WF Caldbeck. The partnership was formed in 1860 by Edward Welby Pugin, AWN Pugin’s son, and his assistant and future brother-in-law George Coppinger Ashlin. Ashlin opened an office at 90 Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin, that year and managed the firm’s Irish business.
The partnership was dissolved towards the end of 1868, shortly after winning the competition to design Saint Kevin’s and not long after Ashlin married Pugin’s sister Mary in 1867.
The stained glass windows of Saint Kevin’s Church are unique as they trace the history of Earley and Company from 1861 to 1975. The Earley and Powell studios designed much of the stained glass windows in the church, including those in the apse depicting the Crucifixion and Christ in Majesty (1872) and the Resurrection and the Last Supper (1873), and the windows in the transepts depicting saints (ca 1880).
The Earley and Powell studios were active in Dublin from 1864 until 1893, and the firm was one of the largest and most prestigious ecclesiastical decorators both in Ireland and Britain. Generations of the Earley family have been involved in maintaining and designing windows in the church, culminating in William Earley creating a window for the south transept.
The business was initially established by Thomas Earley and the brothers Edward and Henry Powell in 1853 as a branch of the Birmingham firm of church decorators, John Hardman & Co – the Powells were nephews of John Hardman.
The Dublin branch of Hardman’s of Birmingham was first at 48 Grafton Street, and by February 1860 they had set up a workshop at 1 Upper Camden Street. After Hardman’s gave up their connection with the Dublin business in 1864, it continued running from Upper Camden Street as Earley & Powells or Earley & Powell. Edward Powell died in 1876, Henry Powell died in 1882, and Thomas Earley died in 1893.
The foundation stone of the new church was laid on 3 June 1868, and the contractor was Michael Meade. The building work was delayed by a two-month strike by workers seeking a pay rise form 30 to 33 shillings a week – they eventually accepted 32 shillings.
The church was completed within four years and was dedicated on Saint Kevin’s Day, 3 June 1872, by Cardinal Paul Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin. The setting for the inaugural Mass was Haydn’s Imperial Mass No 3, also known as Missa in Angustiis and the ‘Lord Nelson Mass.’
Saint Kevin’s Church is a Gothic Revival church, forming part of a significant group of religious and education buildings between Kelly’s Corner and the east end of the South Circular Road.
The church is oriented on a west-east axis, rather than the traditional east-west alignment proposed in the original plans. Cardinal Cullen wanted the church to open onto Synge Street and the Christian Brothers’ schools at the east end, and a presbytery built on the west end, at the corner of Harrington Street and Heytesbury Street.
Saint Kevin’s is a cruciform-plan, double-height church, with a gable-fronted five-bay nave, two-bay transepts with gabled porches, sacristies, and a five-sided apse at the west end (liturgical east). There are octagonal-plan corner turrets at the nave and transepts, and pinnacled buttresses at the nave. A proposed church spire was never built. The juxtaposition of rusticated granite and Portland stone dressings provides textural and tonal variation to the exterior of the church.
Inside, the church is oriented on a west-east axis, rather than a traditional east-west alignment. The unusual pinnacled reredos in the chancel provides a focal point to the west end or liturgical east end of the church.
The sculptor Francis Hubert Earley carved the statues of Saint Michael and Saint Gabriel statues flanking the high altar.
The marble pulpit is by James O’Callaghan of Bachelor’s Walk and has a carved timber canopy. O’Callaghan also made the baptismal font. The gallery at the liturgical west end incorporates the organ and is supported on a segmental-headed arcade. The pews are particularly noteworthy, and are probably by Hardman & Co.
A new organ was installed in 1903 and the grissille stained glass, the largest of its kind in Ireland, was installed that year. The work was carried out by Earley and Co of Camden Street.
After the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, the altar was moved out from the wall to facilitate the versus populum orientation of the Mass.
Saint Kevin’s Church has been the home of the Dublin Latin Mass Chaplaincy since 2007. It is the only church in Dublin where the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, or Traditional Latin Mass, is licitly celebrated.
The Altar has been placed back in its original position in the chancel area to facilitate the ad orientem style used in Tridentine Mass.
A major restoration of the sanctuary was completed in November 2013. This included repairing the stained glass and redecorating and repainting the sanctuary wall and ceiling, and redecorating the walls according to the original Victorian era stencil-work designs.
The restoration work continues at Saint Kevin’s, slowly returning the church to the original Gothic Revival splendour envisaged by Pugin and Ashlin and by the Earley and Powell studios in Camden Street.
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