Sir William Robinson from Westmeath is remembered 150 years later in streets and developments in Singapore

Modern Singapore has been strongly influenced by Irish-born governors, developers and architects (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I am sorry to have missed the opportunity to be back in Singapore and Kuching during these weeks. I have missed some family gatherings, including a wedding in Kuching last weekend, and a visit last week to the Marina Bay Sands, a landmark in Singapore and one of the great architectural works by Moshe Safdie, who is one of thes greatest living architects today.

Last year, I looked at the influence of Irish figures and Irish developers and architects on the political life and the landscape of both Singapore and Kuching.

Sir Orfeur Cavenagh (1820-1891), who had family roots in Co Wexford and Co Kildare, lived in Singapore as the Governor of the Straits Settlements in from 1859 to 1867. William Cuppage (1807-1871), who first began to develop Emerald Hill almost 200 years ago, named Erin Lodge, Fern Cottage and Clare Grove after his family’s homes in Ireland.

The architects include including George Drumgoole Coleman (1795-1844) from Drogheda, who designed the original Saint Andrew’s Cathedral and many public buildings, Denis Lane McSwiney (1800-1867) from Cork who designed the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd in Singapore and Denis Santry (1879-1960), also from Cork, who designed many public buildings in both Singapore and Kuching.

I aslo came across a member of the Comerford family, Gerald Francis Commerford, who was held by the Japanese as a prisoner of war in Singapore and Borneo during World War II.

Sir William Cleaver Francis Robinson (1834-1897) was in Singapore as the Governor of the Straits Settlement for almost three yers from 1877 to 1879

Another key Irish-born figure in Singapore was Sir William Cleaver Francis Robinson (1834-1897), a colonial administrator and composer, who wrote several well-known songs. Robinson only spent a short time in Singapore as the Governor of the Straits Settlement, less than three years from 1877 to 1879, and for most of his colonial career he was based in Australia. But he has left his mark in Singapore in street names and property developments.

Despite his name, Robinson was not connected with the well-known business of Robinson and Cleaver on the corner of Donegall Square and Donegall Place in Belfast. Instead, Robinson was descended from distinguished landed families in Ireland, each with a strong presence in the Church of Ireland. His father, Admiral Hercules Robinson (1789-1864), was present with Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and later was the Sheriff of Westmeath in 1842.

Hercules Robinson took his unusual first name from his maternal grandfather, Sir Hercules Langrishe (1729-1811) of Knocktopher Abbey, Co Kilkenny, an MP for Kilkenny in Grattan’s Parliament and a vocal advocate of Catholic Emancipation.

The admiral’s father, the Revd Christopher Robinson, the Rector of Granard, Co Longford, while his mother, Elizabeth Langrishe, was a sister of James Langrishe (1765-1847), Dean of Achonry and Archdeacon of Glendalough, and a first cousin of both Robert Tottenham (1773-1850), Bishop of Clogher, who lived at Woodstock, Co Wicklow, and John Loftus (1770-1845), 2nd Marquess of Ely, who inherited Loftus Hall, Co Wexford, and Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin.

Rosmead, the Robinson family home near Delvin, Co Westmeath, has been abandoned and derelict since 1940 (Photograph: Willie Forde Photography)

William Robinson was born on 14 January 1834 in Rosmead, his mother’s family home near Delvin, Co Westmeath, halfway between Mullingar and Kells. He was the fourth son of Admiral Hercules Robinson and his wife Frances Elizabeth Wood (1794-1873), the only daughter and heir of Henry Wildman Wood (1720-1795). Rosmead was built in the early 1700s by the Wood family and passed to the Robinson family after Hercules Robinson and Frances Elizabeth Wood married in 1822.

William Robinson was educated at home in Co Westmeath, and at the Royal Naval School, a private boarding in New Cross, Surrey. At the end of his school days, the indebted Robinson family were forced to sell the Rosmead estate in Westmeath in the Encumbered Estates Court. George Charles Mostyn (1804-1883), 6th Lord Vaux of Harrowden, bought the estate in 1852.

The Robinson estate included 1,564 acres at Rosmead, an additional 1,630 acres in Co Westmeath, 1,182 in Co Kilkenny, 677 in Co Meath, and 1,460 in Co Mayo. The sale of the contents alone took three days and included three grand pianofortes, a library with 1,162 books and a painting by Van Dyck.

Meanwhile, William Robinson joined the staff of the Colonial Office in 1858 as a private secretary to his brother, Hercules Robinson, who was Lieutenant Governor of St Kitts, and then accompanied him to Hong Kong in 1859.

William was appointed the President (Viceroy or Governor) of Montserrat in the West Indies in 1862. That same year, he married Olivia Edith Deane Townsend, a daughter of Thomas Stewart Townsend (1800-1852), briefly Dean of Lismore and Dean of Waterford (1850), and then Bishop of Meath (1850-1852).

Robinson was posted to Dominica and then was the Governor of the Falkland Islands (1866-1870), which he described as a ‘remote settlement at the fag end of the world’; Prince Edward Island (1870-1873), where he oversaw the island being incorporated into Canada in 1873; the Leeward Islands (1874); and, for his first time, Governor of Western Australia (1875-1877).

Robinson was appointed governor of the Straits Settlements in 1877. The Straits Settlements came under British control as a crown colony in 1867. It originally consisted of the four individual settlements of Singapore, Penang, Malacca and Dinding; Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands were added in 1886, and the island of Labuan, off the coast of Borneo, was incorporated into the colony in 1907. Most of the territories now form part of Malaysia, from which Singapore was expelled in 1965.

Robinson arrived in Singapore in 1877, ten years after the Straits Settlements had become a British crown colony. The governor was also High Commissioner for the Federated Malay States on the peninsula, and for British North Borneo, the Sultanate of Brunei and Sarawak in Borneo, ruled from Kuching by the Brooke dynasty.

At the time of his appointment to Singapore, Robinson was knighted (KCMG). From Singapore, he oversaw British interests in Bangkok in 1878, and received awards from the King of Siam (Thailand).

Sir William Robinson left Singapore for Australia in 1880

After his time in Singapore, Robinson later served as Governor of Western Australia for a second term (1880-1883) and Governor of South Australia (1883-1889), and was promoted in the knighthood to GCMG in 1887. He found his role as Governor of South Australia was primarily symbolic and social, and was probably bored during that time there. But he was passionate about music, playing the violin and the piano and singing, and he relieved his boredom in South Australia in musical events. He wrote many songs and composed a comic opera that was staged at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne.

He turned down an opportunity to become Governor of Hong Kong, saying he did not want to undergo its harsh climate. He was the acting Governor of Victoria in 1889, and rejected an invitation to become Governor of Mauritius. After an interlude in London, he returned for a third term as the Governor of Western Australia (1890-1895). He managed the transition of the colony to self-rule and chose John Forrest as the first Premier of Western Australia.

He retired from his colonial career in March 1895, at age 61. He moved back to England and became the director of many companies. He died on 2 May 1897 in South Kensington, London. He and his wife Olivia were the parents of two daughters and three sons. He left £84,058 in his will – the equivalent of almost £14 million today.

William Robinson often lived in the shadow of his brother, Hercules Robinson (1824-1897), another Irish-born colonial governor whose career included being Governor of Hong Kong, Governor of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Governor of New South Wales, the first Governor of Fiji, Governor of New Zealand, two terms as High Commissioner for Southern Africa, and two terms as Governor of the Cape Colony. When Hercules was made a member of the House of Lords in 1896 he chose the title of Baron Rosmead of Rosmead, Co Westmeath.

But by then the Mostyn family had put the Rosmead estate up for sale again in the Landed Estates Court in 1879. There were proposals for its adaptation ‘for religious use’ in 1933. The designs by the Dublin architect Ralph Henry Byrne (1877-1946) including the creation of an oratory.

But these proposals came to nothing. The porch and the roof were removed in 1940, much of the house was dismantled, and some of the stone work used to rebuild Balrath, Co Meath, in 1942. Since then, the house has lain in ruins.

Sir William Robinson is remembered in the names of streets and developments in Singapore, including Robinson Road, Robinson Square, Robinson Centre and Robinson Point

But Sir William Robinson is remembered in the names of streets and developments in Singapore, including Robinson Road, Robinson Square, Robinson Centre and Robinson Point.

Robinson Road is a major trunk road in the Central Area that stretches from Maxwell Road to Finlayson Green. The land on which Robinson Road stands was created through land reclamation that began in 1879. It was a coastal road until more land reclamation from the early 1900s to 1932 shifted the shoreline further east to make room for building Shenton Way.

Today, Robinson Road is flanked by major skyscrapers and several developments, including Robinson Centre and Robinson Point. For years, the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department and the Chinese daily Sin Chew Jit Poh were on Robinson Road.

Crosby House, a seven-storey office complex, is a landmark at the corner of Robinson Road and McCallum Street. It was once owned by the Standard Chartered Bank and later by Singtel. Buildings along Robinson Road include architecture built in the 1920s and 1930s, such as the curved Telecoms Building – previously known as the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company (1927) and then Cable and Wireless Building, and later the Ogilvy Centre. The building now houses So Sofitel Singapore, a five-star hotel.

In Australia, Robinson Avenue, Robinson Road and Cleaver Street in central Perth were named after Robinson, as well as Port Robinson, a natural harbour in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Of course, there were other colonial governors in Singapore who were born in Ireland or who came from Irish families.

General Sir Andrew Clarke (1824-1902), who was the Governor of the Straits Settlements in 1873-1875, was a son of Colonel Andrew Clarke (1793-1847), another colonial governor, who was born in Lifford, Co Donegal. The younger Andrew Clarke was brought up by his grandfather, Dr Andrew Clarke, and two uncles, James Langton Clarke and William Hislop Clarke at the family home, Belmont, near Lifford. He went to Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, and spent part of his early military career in Fermoy Co Cork.

Belmont was a large country house at Curraghlane in Lifford. The house has since been demolished, and a housing estate named Beechwood is on the grounds of the house.

Peter Benson Maxwell (1817-1893), the chief justice of the Straits Settlements in 1867-1871, was the fourth son of the Revd Peter Benson Maxwell (1780-1867) of Birdstown, Co Donegal, and was educated at Trinity College Dublin. His wife, Frances Dorothea Synge (1813-1896), was a daughter of Francis Synge (1761-1831) of Glanmore Castle, Ashford, Co Wicklow, MP for Swords. Their son, Sir William Edward Maxwell (1846-1897), was Acting Governor of the Straits Settlements in 1893-1894.

So there is much more to explore in these Irish links the next time I am in Singapore.


A walking tour of Robinson Road, Singapore

Daily prayers in the Kingdom Season with USPG: (23) 27 November 2023

The Cathedral of Christ the King in Mullingar, Co Westmeath … a landmark building in the Irish Midlands (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

In this time between All Saints’ Day and Advent Sunday, we are in the Kingdom Season in the Calendar of the Church of England. The week began with the Feast of Christ the King and the Sunday next before Advent (26 November 2023).

Before today begins, I am taking some time for prayer and reflection early this morning.

Throughout this week, I am reflecting on Christ the King, as seen in churches and cathedrals I know or I have visited. My reflections are following this pattern:

1, A reflection on Christ the King;

2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Inside the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar, Co Westmeath:

The Cathedral of Christ the King in the centre of Mullingar, Co Westmeath, is a landmark building in the Irish Midlands. The campanile towers and the dome dominate the skyline and approaches to Mullingar for many miles around, and the silhouette of the cathedral has become a symbol of Mullingar.

This is the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Meath and it stands at the top of Mary Street, at the junction with College Street and Bishop’s Gate Street, towering above the centre of the county town of Westmeath.

Mullingar Cathedral is yet another statement by the Dublin-based architect Ralph Byrne of the confidence of Roman Catholicism in post-independence Ireland in the 1920s and 1930s, like his cathedral in Cavan and his strong emphatic churches in Athlone, Co Westmeath, and Harold’s Cross, Dublin.

Byrne’s cathedral in Mullingar replaced an earlier cathedral, dedicated to Saint Mary, that stood on the same site from 1836. This was a large Gothic Revival T-plan church, with four octagonal turrets at the west front, and this, in turn, had replaced the parish chapel dating from 1730.

Planning for a new cathedral began in 1920. The building work began in March 1933 and the foundation stone was laid on 6 August 1933 by Thomas Mulvany, Bishop of Meath (1929-1943).

The new cathedral was designed by the Dublin-based architect, Ralph Henry Byrne (1877-1947). Byrne was noted for his academic approach to architectural design. He favoured the classical idiom for much of his church designs, moving away from the Gothic Revival-style, which had been in vogue for Roman Catholic building projects since the early 19th century.

Byrne designed the cathedral to look like a basilica in form and renaissance in style. The distinctive twin towers, surmounted by bronze crosses, rise to a height of about 42.6 metres. The nave is 36.5 metres long and 15.2 metres wide. It follows the pattern of great Roman basilicas such as Saint Paul Outside the Walls.

Murphy of Dublin were the builders, while much of the artistic decoration work, including the marble altar goods and the bronze and brass fittings, was designed and fitted by Earley of Camden Street, Dublin, Gunning Smyth’s, and J and C McGloughlin of Dublin, and Oppenheimer of Old Trafford, Manchester.

The cathedral is designed on a complicated regular plan and on a north-south axis rather than the traditional, liturgical east-west axis. It has a seven-bay nave with a clerestory over and flanking single-storey side aisles, full-height transepts terminated by pediments, a broad apsidal chancel at the north or liturgical east end, and a circular drum with a copper dome above at the central crossing.

At the south side or liturgical west end, the cathedral has a central two-storey block with a pedimented breakfront and with colonnades or loggias at both the first and second floor levels. This is flanked by single-storey blocks on each side supporting the four-storey arcaded campanile towers, each crowned with limestone domes, topped with gilded cross finials.

The main, square-headed entrance has timber panelled double-doors, with a segmental-headed window over, to the centre of the south façade. It is set behind a Venetian-type arrangement of a central round-headed arch flanked by lower square-headed openings, divided by Doric columns in antis.

The elaborate sculpture on the pediment or tympanum is in Portland stone by Albert George Power (1881-1945), the leading Irish sculptor of the 1920s and 1930s. It depicts the Virgin Mary handing over a model of the previous Gothic Revival cathedral into the care of Christ the King. There are sculpted panels by H Thompson of Dublin on the front façade above the main entrances.

The cathedral is built of channelled ashlar granite, with extensive ashlar limestone and ashlar granite detailing. There is a variety of window openings, mostly square-headed with metal glazing bars and cut stone surrounds. The ground floor window openings in the nave are set in round-headed recesses. There are pitched roofs.

Inside, the vast open interior of the cathedral is reminiscent of the layout of a Roman basilica and seats over 1,800 people. It is lavishly decorated using different types and colours of marble and has least seven side chapels. There are numerous columns in various types of marble, including colonnades formed of paired Doric columns in Rochambeau marble, separated by high round-headed arches, giving access to the side aisles and to the transepts.

The mosaic in the apse in the sanctuary represents the Ascension. The cathedra or bishop’s throne and the chapter stalls were carved in Irish oak in Waterford.

There are seven side chapels in the cathedral, dedicated to Saint Patrick, Saint Anne, Saint Joseph and the Holy Family, Saint Therese of Lisieux as patron of Foreign Missions, a mortuary chapel, a Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament and a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes. Some of these chapels are decorated with mosaics by the Russian artist Boris Anrep (1883-1969).

The Baptistry is now the cathedral shop and the double baptism font has been moved to the top of the west or right-hand aisle.

The Stations of the Cross are in opus sectile and mosaic. The pulpit, of white marble, has carvings depicting the Sermon on the Mount, Saint John the Baptist and Saint Patrick. There is an extensive collection of marble altar goods and a number of bronze fittings and railings.

The new cathedral was formally opened and dedicated on 6 September 1936. At the request of Pope Pius XI, this became the first cathedral in the world to be dedicated to Christ the King. The cathedral was solemnly consecrated on 4 September 1939. The total cost of the building, including decoration, was £250,000 to £275,000, an enormous sum for those days.

Boris Anrep’s image of Christ the King in his Saint Patrick mosaic is inspired by the Visitation of Abraham or Old Testament Trinity best known in the West in the work of Andrei Rublev (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The works of art for which Mullingar Cathedral is most noted are the mosaics in the chapels of Saint Anne and Saint Patrick. These are the work of the Russian-born mosaic artist Boris Anrep, a celebrated artist and socialite, best known for his monumental mosaics at the National Gallery, Westminster Cathedral, and the Bank of England in London.

The Saint Patrick mosaic depicts Saint Patrick lighting the Paschal fire on the Hill of Slane. Saint Patrick is seen lifting the cross with one hand in a vigorous movement, and in his other hand he is holding a torch. The firewood is arranged in a Christogram, signifying the symbolic importance of the fire.

In the Saint Anne mosaic, her name is spelled Anna, and the image of Saint Anne is said to resemble the poet Anna Akhmatova, with whom Anrep had an affair during World War I.

Byrne was the architect of choice for the Roman Catholic Church at this time and during the 1930s his commissions included the new cathedral in Cavan, the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Athlone, Co Westmeath, and the Rosary Church in Harold’s Cross, Dublin, during the 1930s.

In Mullingar, Byrne calls on an eclectic mix of architectural styles, drawing on the classical imperial traditions of Rome, the work of Palladio, the Italian Baroque, Webb and perhaps even the neoclassicism of James Gandon and the work of Sir Edwin Lutyens in New Delhi.

Despite Byrne’s seemingly ad hoc use of classical styles, his cathedral in Mullingar is a polished architectural work. The stark cold ashlar granite on the façade contrasts with the opulence of the marble interior. The façade is a complex arrangement of classical elements, giving out a strong message of triumphalism, and is dominated on the upper storey by the pedimented temple with inset Corinthian columns.

The cathedral is set back from a busy junction in the town centre in extensive mature grounds, with the Bishop’s Residence to one side, a school in its own grounds on the other side, north-east and a large forecourt and car park at the front.

Mullingar Cathedral has been compared in terms of architectural style and ambition to the state-sponsored architectural projects built in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy at the same time. Other critics are kinder when they say this is one of the most stylishly triumphant cathedrals in Ireland, offering visitors ‘an overwhelming experience.’

Whatever you think of it, this massive and extensively detailed cathedral is a monumental statement of the confidence, power and the authority of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland in the first decades after Irish independence.

Albert Power’s elaborate sculpture on the tympanum of Mullingar Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 9: 18-34 (NRSVA):

18 While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, ‘My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.’ 19 And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. 20 Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, 21 for she said to herself, ‘If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.’ 22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, ‘Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.’ And instantly the woman was made well. 23 When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute-players and the crowd making a commotion, 24 he said, ‘Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.’ And they laughed at him. 25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. 26 And the report of this spread throughout that district.

27 As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, crying loudly, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David!’ 28 When he entered the house, the blind men came to him; and Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ They said to him, ‘Yes, Lord.’ 29 Then he touched their eyes and said, ‘According to your faith let it be done to you.’ 30 And their eyes were opened. Then Jesus sternly ordered them, ‘See that no one knows of this.’ 31 But they went away and spread the news about him throughout that district.

32 After they had gone away, a demoniac who was mute was brought to him. 33 And when the demon had been cast out, the one who had been mute spoke; and the crowds were amazed and said, ‘Never has anything like this been seen in Israel.’ 34 But the Pharisees said, ‘By the ruler of the demons he casts out the demons.’

The mosaic in the apse in the sanctuary in Mullingar depicts the Ascension (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 27 November 2023):

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 ‘Preventing Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission.’ This theme was introduced yesterday.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (27 November 2023) invites us to pray in these words:

We pray for the Anglican Church of Tanzania, for all the community programmes they are supporting including the PMTCT programme.

The Baptism Font in Mullingar has been moved to the top of the west (left) aisle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect:

Eternal Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven
that he might rule over all things as Lord and King:
keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit
and in the bond of peace,
and bring the whole created order to worship at his feet;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Stir up, O Lord,
the wills of your faithful people;
that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works,
may by you be plenteously rewarded;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This Post Communion Prayer may be used as the Collect at Morning and Evening Prayer during this week.

Additional Collect

God the Father,
help us to hear the call of Christ the King
and to follow in his service,
whose kingdom has no end;
for he reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, one glory.

Yesterday’s Reflection (Cathedral of Christ the King, Liverpool)

Continued Tomorrow (Church of Christ the King, Turner’s Cross, Cork)

The entrance porch in the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar (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

The towers and dome of Mullingar Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Sculpture by Lough Owel recalls the legend of the Children of Lir

‘The Children of Lir’ (1993) Linda Brunker on the shores of Lough Owel, near Mullingar, Co Westmeath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

On the way back from Sligo early last week, I stopped to see a number of lakeside and riverside sculptures that tell stories from Irish legends and history, including ‘The Gaelic Chieftain’ by Maurice Harron, near Boyle, Co Roscommon, and Will Fogarty’s sculpture of Saint Eidin in the Linear Park by the banks of the River Shannon in Carrick-on-Shannon.

Linda Brunker’s bronze sculpture, ‘The Children of Lir,’ overlooks Lough Owel, outside Mullingar, Co Westmeath. It was commissioned by Westmeath County Council in 1993.

Linda Brunker, who now lives in Toulouse in France, was born in Dublin in 1966, and studied at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin (1983-1988), where she received a Diploma in Sculpture (1987) and her degree in fine art (1988).

She has received many public commissions through Ireland and in Brussels, London and the US, and her work is in private collections in Ireland, Europe, Japan and the US.

Her public works include the ‘Pact Woodland Sculpture Project’ (2006) in Tymon Park, Dublin; ‘Voyager’ (2004) at Laytown Strand, commissioned by Meath County Council; ‘The Healing Tree’ (2002), Virginia, Co Cavan; ‘The Wishing Hand’ (2001), Department of Education, Marlborough Square, Dublin; and ‘The Children of Lir’ overlooking Lough Owel.

Her work has been recognised with numerous awards and presentation pieces.

She lived at Laguna Beach, California, and Melrose, West Hollywood, before moving to Toulouse some years ago.

Linda Brunker’s ‘The Children of Lir’ (1993) on the shores of Lough Owel, Co Westmeath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Lough Owel and Lough Derravaragh in Co Westmeath are associated with the myth of the Children of Lir. In Irish storytelling, it is classed one of the ‘The Three Sorrows of Storytelling’ – the other two being ‘The Exile of the Children of Uisneach’ and ‘The Faith of the Children of Tuireann.’

Lir was a chieftain of the Tuatha de Danann tribe. On the death of Daghda, their king, a convention of chiefs elected his son, Bodhbh Dearg (Bov the Red), to succeed him. This decision offended Lir who felt he had a greater claim to the kingship.

Shortly after, Lir’s wife died and in a gesture of friendship, Bodhbh Dearg, who had three beautiful foster-daughters, offered Lir the choice of his daughters as wife. Lir chose Aobh, the eldest who gave birth to four beautiful children: Fionnuala, Aodh, Fiachra, and Conn. Tragedy struck when Aobh died. Lir was heartbroken and he too would have died but for the great love he had for his children.

After a time Bodhbh Dearg offered Lir Aoife, the sister of Aobh, as his wife, and Lir and Aoife were married.

Lir’s four children were famous for their beauty and were beloved by all the Tuatha De Danann. At the beginning, Aoife looked after the children with a mother’s love but evil touched her heart and she became insanely jealous of Lir’s love for his children.

One morning, when Lir was away hunting, Aoife took the children out in her chariot to visit their grandfather Bodhbh Dearg. She stopped at Lough Derravaragh and led the children to the water to bathe. As soon as they were on the lake, she struck them with a magic wand and changed them into four beautiful swans, decreeing that they should spend 300 years on Lough Derravaragh, 300 years on the Sea of Moyle or the North Channel, and 300 years on the Bay of Erris, Co Mayo.

Aoife left them their speech and gave them the power of singing in a way surpassing all earthly music. Legend has it that for this crime Bodhbh Dearg punished Aoife by transforming her into an air demon.

Throughout their 300 years on Lough Derravaragh, great crowds frequently camped on the shore to listen to the singing of the swans. Later, on the Sea of Moyle, and finally, on the Bay of Erris, the four swan-children went through great sufferings.

During their final days on the Bay of Erris, they learnt of Saint Patrick, who had come to Ireland to spread the Christian faith. As Saint Caemhoch, one of Saint Patrick’s disciples prayed with them, their feathers fell away and they were restored to their human form. They were now three old feeble men and an old woman. Saint Caemhoch baptised them before they died. They were buried together in the one grave as they wished.

Sunset seen from the shores of Lough Owel, near Mullingar, Co Westmeath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

County Buildings in Mullingar bring new meaning to an old site

The atrium in the County Buildings and County Library in Mullingar, Co Westmeath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

I was discussing Mullingar Courthouse, the old County Hall and the former Market House yesterday [24 August 2018] as examples of traditional architecture than enhance the elegance of the county town of Westmeath.

During my visit to Mullingar earlier last week, I also visited one of the most interesting examples of modern architecture in provincial Ireland, designed to create a comfortable working environment yet integrated into the surrounding environment.

Westmeath County Buildings, beside the old County Hall on Mount Street, Mullingar, is the headquarters of Westmeath County Council and incorporates the County Library. This open and transparent building is a low energy civic office building at the heart of an important archaeological site in the county town.

The building is carefully woven into its historic archaeological context, creating an ensemble of new and old buildings, and together they bring new meaning and civic values to this old site.

The county buildings and library in Mullingar were designed by the architects Bucholz McEvoy, who also designed Limerick County Hall in Limerick, Meath County Council Headquarters in Navan, and Fingal County Hall in Swords, the Environmental Institute at University College Cork, the Samuel Beckett Civic Campus in Ballyogan, the welcoming pavilion at Government Buildings, and the entrance pavilion at Leinster House. The building, completed in 2009, included 7,500 square metres of new build and 1,550 square metres of refurbishment.

The building is designed to provide a vessel for the transparency attributed to local government, a civic building accessible by all, while providing both a comfortable work place and a pleasant experience for visitors.

Outside, the building is an expression of open and transparent local government (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Outside, this building is an expression of open and transparent local government. Inside, as we entered the building through the main public atrium, we found ourselves in a sculpture of light, created primarily with glass, timber, and concrete.

The building form is organised principally along two axes and in two buildings. One north-south axis contains the library and café and establishes the principal relationship with the original County Building on Mount Street. The other, east-west axis is a curved office block.

The main atrium of the building is conceived of as a light-filled glass and timber hall, where the presence of the existing County Building and the historical remains are linked. Movement across the site, through the building, and to the public park takes place through this space, constantly reinforcing the connection to the County Building.

On the first floor, link bridges connect the existing County Buildings to the reception and meeting room at the intersection of the bridge and the office block.

The library is reached through the main public space, with its double-height reading room facing out onto a public park. The curved office spine looks to the south, facing a new public park over the excavated ground.

This entirely naturally ventilated building maximises passive design principles and creates an environment that is in balance with nature. The design of a structure in its construction and operation consumes less of the environment’s natural non-renewable resources.

A double façade combined with an atrium lung serve to effect all of the ventilation in the office building. The double façade acts as a ventilation chimney driven entirely through wind pressure, while acting as an acoustic barrier.

The double facade also ensures fresh air supply throughout the year, without opening a window out to the noisy train tracks. The atrium, the main public space, is also the ventilation lung of the building, providing supply air to the offices.

Westmeath County Buildings and Library has been an award-winning project for Bucholz McEvoy, including the 2010 Chicago Atheneum Green Good Design Award, the 2010 Chicago Atheneum International Architecture Award, the 2009 Opus Architecture and Construction Award, and a commendation in the 2010 RIAI Awards, it was shortlisted for the 2010 Prime Property Award and the 2009 Public Building of the Year Emirates Glass LEAF Awards, and it was a finalist in the 2010 Green Award.

Westmeath County Buildings and Library has been an award-winning project for Bucholz McEvoy (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Three public buildings that enhance the architectural elegance of Mullingar

The Courthouse in Mullingar … an elegant example of a courthouse in an Irish provincial town (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

The Courthouse and the County Hall on Mount Street in Mullingar, Co Westmeath, form an interesting pair of buildings on a roundabout leading into the town centre. I was in Mullingar last week, and the courthouse, county hall and former market house stood out as elegant parts of the architectural legacy of the county town of Co Westmeath.

Mullingar Courthouse is an Italianate classical composition, and it represents one of the most elegant examples of its type in Ireland. It is built in the tradition of Richard Morrison’s courthouse in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, rather than the later Greek temple tradition, found in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, and the courthouse in Carlow, modelled on the Temple on the Ilissus in Athens by William Vitruvius Morrison (1794-1838).

The well-detailed façade of the courthouse is built of high quality ashlar limestone masonry. It has two superimposed blind arcades that contain a variety of openings or blank walls and they serve to unify the different elements of the composition.

This courthouse has a handsome and highly literate Italianate façade facing Mount Street and it is one of the key buildings of Mullingar. It was designed by the Dublin architect John Hargrave (1788-1833), one of the most eminent architects of his day.

John Hargrave was the third son of Abraham Hargrave of Cork. He was articled to his father’s relative, Thomas Harrison of Chester, but established his practice in Ireland. He was one of the architects who applied unsuccessfully to succeed Francis Johnston as the architect to the Board of Works in 1826. His application was supported by Lord Forbes and by RH Sheehan.

Hargrave worked from Talbot Street in Dublin from 1826 to 1833. But on 30 August 1833, at the age of 45, he was drowned with his only son, John, and all his family while sailing in his yacht in Cardigan Bay.

Hargrave also designed neighbouring Mullingar Jail, which is now largely demolished. The two buildings in were originally linked by a tunnel for moving prisoners between the court and the cells. The tunnel is said to be there still but is blocked.

The present courthouse replaced an earlier courthouse in Mullingar that stood on Pearse Street.

This building was commissioned by the Westmeath Grand Jury in 1819, in response to an Act of Parliament passed in 1813. It cost £6,700 to build and was opened in 1829. It also served as the headquarters of the Westmeath Grand Jury from 1829 to 1899 and later as the County Council offices from 1900 to 1913, when it was succeeded by the new County Buildings across the street.

The courthouse has formed the backdrop to many important events in the history of Co Westmeath over the last 200 years and is of immense importance to the heritage of the county.

It is a detached, seven-bay, two-storey courthouse, with a five-bay breakfront to the centre of the main façade and recessed two-storey bays to either side. There are flanking single-storey dressed limestone walls to either gable end of building, each with a segmental-headed carriage-arch. There is a three-bay arcade to the centre of the breakfront at the ground floor level.

Throughout the building there are extensive ashlar limestone and cut-stone details, including Doric pilasters at the first-floor level that separate the bays to the advanced breakfront and a moulded string course at the springing point of the arches at first floor level.

The County Hall on Mount Street in Mullingar, Co Westmeath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Across the street from the courthouse and on the same roundabout, the County Hall is a late example of an essay in the Italianate classical style. It forms an attractive Classical set piece with the earlier courthouse.

The asymmetrical front façade appears somewhat disjointed, but it is well-built.

It was built in 1910 -1913 on the site of earlier buildings that were part of Mullingar Jail, which was built in 1825, and it may incorporate fabric from earlier jail buildings.

This building is an important part of the architectural heritage and social history of Mullingar. I understand the entrance hall retains some interesting Celtic strapwork-style plasterwork.

The interesting details include an advanced pedimented central bay with a projecting cut limestone Doric porch on a semi-circular-plan with a balustraded parapet over that has cast-iron balustrades, and a three-bay two-storey section to the east with cut limestone Doric pilasters between the bays.

These two buildings stand close to one another in a prominent position at the south end of Mount Street leading into the town centre of Mullingar.

The Market House in Market Place in the centre of Mullingar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The Market House in Market Place is another prominently sited and important civic building that played a pivotal role in the economic and social history of Mullingar. Despite some recent alterations to the openings and the removal of the early roughcast rendered finish, this building retains much of its early form and character.

The arcaded ground floor, which was once arcaded, is a typical feature of Irish market houses in Irish provincial towns. The projecting pedimented breakfront with its cupola and clock tower create an attractive centrepiece that give the Market House a sense of authority and a strong presence in the centre of Mullingar.

The Market House was built or rebuilt in 1867 for Fulke Southwell Greville-Nugent (1821-1883), 1st Baron Greville, and was designed by the Dublin architect William Francis Caldbeck (1824-1872).

Caldbeck was a son of Richard Caldbeck and grandson of John Frederick Caldbeck; his great-grandfather was William Caldbeck of Clondalkin and Larch Hill, Whitechurch, Co Dublin, a barrister, gunpowder-miller and amateur architect.

William Francis Caldbeck was a pupil of William Deane Butler, and set up his own in practice in 1844. In 1867, he also described himself as ‘consul for Uruguay and Montevideo.’

His other works include the courthouse in Newcastle West, Co Limerick, and the Carlisle Buildings in D’Olier Street, Dublin. He was also the architect to the National Bank, and his bank buildings include the National Bank (low the Bank of Ireland) in Rathkeale, Co Limerick.

Caldbeck died suddenly at his office as 24 Harcourt Street, Dublin, on 30 March 1872 and was buried at Glasnevin Cemetery. It was said he left his widow and family ‘perfectly independent.’

Caldbeck’s market house in Mullingar stands on the site of an earlier market house, built around 1730, and Caldbeck’s work may have been no more than a remodelling of the earlier building. The earlier market house stood slightly to the north of the present building and the existing front wall would have been close to the site of the rear wall of the former market house.

This earlier market house was described in 1815 as ‘a two-storey block with eight large gateways’ – not unlike its present appearance. The present Market House is a detached, eight-bay, two-storey building, with an advanced two-bay pedimented breakfront at the centre of the main façade and a louvered cupola and clock tower.

The carved stone coat of arms on the pediment represents Lord Greville, the local landlord who commissioned Caldbeck’s work. A cut stone plaque above the declares with bold confidence in capitals: ‘Market House.’

The Market House served as a wool store in the closing decades of the 19th century, and now serves as a tourist office in the centre of Mullingar. In the square in front, the statue of the popular singer the late Joe Dolan is a popular location for many ‘selfies.’

Like the courthouse and the county hall, the market house remains an important part of the architectural heritage of Mullingar.

The statue of Joe Dolan in front of the Market House in Mullingar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Tales of Russian love and poetry in the mosaics in Mullingar Cathedral

Saint Anna … Boris Anrep’s image in Mullingar Cathedral was inspired by his former lover, the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018; click on images for full-screen views)

Patrick Comerford

The works of art for which the Cathedral of Christ the King in Mullingar, Co Westmeath, is most noted are the mosaics in the side chapels dedicated to Saint Patrick and Saint Anne. These are the work of the Russian-born mosaic artist Boris Anrep (1883-1969), a celebrated artist and socialite who is best known for his monumental mosaics at the National Gallery, Westminster Cathedral, and the Bank of England in London.

The Saint Patrick mosaic depicts Saint Patrick lighting the Paschal fire on the Hill of Slane. In the Saint Anne mosaic, Saint Anne’s name is spelled Anna, and the image of Saint Anne resembles the poet Anna Akhmatova.

Boris and Anna had an affair in Russia during World War I. But Boris Anrep left Russia before the October Revolution, and did not contact Anna for 48 years. Yet, she remained the muse who haunted his imagination. She appears in several of his mosaics, but this one in Mullingar is the only to include her name. In return, up to 34 of her poems are about him.

In England, Boris was close to the Bloomsbury Group and was a leading figure in London social and intellectual life from 1912 until the mid-1960s. In Ireland, he is known for his mosaics in Mullingar Cathedral. In Russia, he is associated with the Silver Age of Russian Poetry as the focus of many beautiful poems by Anna Akhmatova, including her Tale of the Black Ring. Anrep was also friendly with Nikolay Gumilyov, an outstanding poet and Anna’s husband, and Nikolay Nedobrovo, a talented critic, two prominent figures of the 1910s in Saint Petersburg.

But how did this Russian love affair end up being depicted in Orthodox-style mosaics in a cathedral in a market town in the Irish Midlands, and in mosaics in the National Gallery in London?

Boris Anrep was born Boris Vasilyevich Anrep in St Petersburg on 27 September 1883. The Anrep family, originally from Westphalia, belongs to Swedish and Russian nobility and family members included famous army officers from the 16th to the 19th centuries.

His father, Vassily von Anrep, was a professor of forensic medicine. He held senior positions in the Russian education and interior ministries and was elected to the Duma, the Russian parliament, in 1907.

From 1899 to 1901, Boris went to school in Kharkov, where he first met Nikolay Nedobrovo. He spent the summer of 1899 learning English in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, and from 1902 he studied law in St Petersburg,.

After Nedobrovo introduced Anrep to the painter Dmitri Stelletsky, Boris took an active in the creative arts. In 1904, Boris travelled with Stelletsky to Italy, and there he was enthralled by the Byzantine mosaics in Ravenna. It was on this visit that he determined to become a mosaic artist himself.

He graduated in law at St Petersburg in 1905. He also met Yunia Khitrovo that year, and they were married in 1908. He then abandoned his law studies and left for Paris to study art, followed by a year at the Edinburgh College of Art in 1910-1911.

In France, Boris had become friends with the painters Henry Lamb and Augustus John, and he soon befriended other English artists and intellectuals, including Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes, Roger Fry and Virginia Woolf. He fell in love with Helen Maitland, a friend of Augustus John’s wife Dorelia. They lived together from 1911, had two children, and got married in 1918. However, the marriage was unhappy, and Helen left him to become the lifelong companion of the artist and critic Roger Fry.

Anrep worked with the art critic Clive Bell on Roger Fry’s second Post-Impressionist exhibition in 1912. He was in charge of the Russian section and presented pictures by Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov and Nicholas Roerich.

His first success in London came in 1914 he created mosaics for the Crypt in Westminster Cathedral.

By now, Boris was writing poetry in Russian and in English, influenced by the English romantics, including Percy Bysshe Shelley and William Blake. His poem Fiza was read in 1913 in his absence in St Petersburg and would give its name to the society of poets that included Anna Akhmatova, her husband Nikolay Gumilyov, and Osip Mandelstam and became the centre of Acmeism, a new trend in Russian poetry.

At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Anrep enlisted as an officer in the Russian army and fought in Galicia until 1916. Before joining the army, he visited Nedobrovo in Tsarskoe Selo and was introduced to Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966), who lived nearby. They met continually during Anrep’s short breaks in St Petersburg.

Anna, who was born Anna Andreyevna Gorenko, is regarded as one of the most significant Russian poets of the 20th century.

Boris described their relationship as a ‘warm friendship,’ but for Anna it was intense and inspired over 30 poems that trace their affair from her early hopes and dreams to her bitter disappointment at their parting. They include 17 poems in her third book and 14 poems in her fourth book ‘devoted’ to Boris.

These poems suggest strongly that Anna was passionately in love with Boris. She sees him everywhere in his absence. She dreams of turning the inattentive Boris into an attentive lover, she imagines him as an angel who will reward her for all her suffering, she fantasises about how he would react if she took her own life, she sees herself abandoning everything to live with him as a beggar in a foreign city, and she rails against his eventual decision to leave Russia and to leave her for England in April 1917, and to live permanently in England.

Boris had been called back to London as Military Secretary to the Russian Government Committee. He never returned to Russia. The same year, Anna used a line from Fiza as an epigraph to her book White Flock.

Back in London, Boris resumed his work as an artist. In 1917-1920 he was commissioned to decorate the hall of the Chelsea home of the artist Ethel Sands. This included a turquoise blue floor with Byzantine characters (1917) and walls decorated with portraits of Lytton Strachey, his companion Dora Carrington, and Virginia Woolf in male costume (1920).

He made the mosaics Christus Militans and The Vision of Saint John for the chapel at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst (1921). Another commission was the vestibule in Mayfair for Sir William Jowitt, showing Various Moments in the Life of a Lady of Fashion (1922). Lesley Jowitt was shown telephoning in bed, in her bath, and at a nightclub. In 1923, he decorated the octagonal room in the Tate Gallery with eight panels, illustrating ‘The Proverbs of Hell’ from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake.

The trustees of Saint Sophia, the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Bayswater, London, commissioned Boris in 1926 to execute a major set of mosaics in the sanctuary. He designed a scheme of Byzantine-style mosaics depicting the Incarnation and the mystery of the Eucharist. They depict the Nativity, the Hospitality of Abraham or the Old Testament Trinity, and angels with the chalice at the Eucharist.

He was invited back to decorate other parts of the cathedral from 1932 to 1956, with full length figures of the Major Prophets, busts of the Minor Prophets, and depictions of Saint Nicholas and Saint Christopher with the Christ Child.

Boris also created four colourful mosaics that decorate the imposing staircase built by Sir John Taylor in 1887 for the entrance hall of the National Gallery. The mosaics were paid for by the industrialist Samuel Courtauld and Maud Russell, wife of the banker Gilbert Russell and another of Boris Arnep’s lovers.

The four mosaics are ‘The Labours of Life’ (1928) in the west vestibule, ‘The Pleasures of Life’ (1929) in the east vestibule, ‘The Pleasures of Life’ (1929) in the east vestibule, ‘The Awakening of the Muses’ (1933) on the half-way landing.

Anna Akhmatova, portrayed as Caliope, appears with other contemporary figures in these mosaics, including Sir Osbert Sitwell (Apollo), Clive Bell (Bacchus), Diana Mitford (Polyhymnia), Virginia Woolf (Clio), Greta Garbo (Melpomene), Lady Keynes (Terpsichore), Lady Christabel Aberconway (Euterpe), Maria Volkova (Urania), Mary Hutchinson (Eratoas) and as Lady Lesley Jowitt (Thalia).

Boris returned to National Gallery in 1952 to create the mosaics depicting the ‘Modern Virtues’ in the north vestibule. Once again, Anna appears in Boris’s mosaics, this time as ‘Compassion,’ alongside Loretta Young, Lord Rutherford, Winston Churchill, Margot Fonteyn, Edward Sackville-West, Lady Diana Cooper, TS Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Fred Hoyle, Augustus John and Edith Sitwell.

In this series, ‘Compassion’ is a portrait of Anna Akhmatova surrounded by the horrors of war. She is looking towards another panel that depicts Anrep’s gravestone, linking together his art and her poetry.

The mosaic of Saint Patrick by Boris Anrep in the Cathedral of Christ the King in Mullingar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018; click on images for full-screen views)

Boris is best known in Ireland for his two colourful mosaics of Saint Patrick and Saint Anne in the Cathedral of Christ the King in Mullingar. The cathedral, built in 1933-1939, was designed by Ralph Byrne and the decorative work is by Oppenheimer of Old Trafford, Manchester.

Boris was living in Paris when John Kyne, Bishop of Meath, invited him to Ireland to create his mosaics in Mullingar Cathedral to mark the Marian Year in 1954.

His mosaic depicting Saint Patrick shows Saint Patrick lighting the Paschal fire on the Hill of Slane. Saint Patrick is seen lifting the cross with one hand in a vigorous movement, and in his other hand he is holding a torch. The firewood is arranged in a Christogram, signifying the symbolic importance of the fire, an is also one of the signs of the strong influence of Eastern Orthodox iconography on this mosaic.

In the upper part of the mosaic, Christ is enthroned – Mullingar Cathedral is the first in the world to have been dedicated to Christ the King. Christ is enthroned between two angels, an image that draws on the composition of the Visitation of Abraham or the Old Testament Trinity in Orthodox iconography, best known in the West through the work of the Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev.

Below are inscriptions drawing on the Breastplate of Saint Patrick and images inspired by the High Cross in Castledermot, Co Kildare.

Saint Anna is the dominant figure in the mosaic by Boris Anrep celebrating the Marian Year in 1954 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018; click on images for full-screen views)

His mosaic to celebrate the Virgin Mary presents a scene clearly inspired by the Eastern Orthodox tradition. The young Virgin Mary is being presented to High Priest in the Temple by her mother, Saint Anne, as her father, Saint Joachim, watches on.

Although this was the Marian Year, the dominant figure in this scene is Saint is Anne. She is tall and swathed in dazzling yellow and blue. Below the figures, mirroring the style of the Saint Patrick mosaic in the side chapel opposite, there are Celtic crosses and motifs inspired by the High Crosses at Monasterboice, Co Louth, and a an ancient mediaeval hymn in Latin praising Saint Anne.

Boris gives her name not as Anne but as Anna, with the letters ‘S. Anna’ at the centre of the mosaic. The long face of the saint, with her large dark eyes and curved nose, has an uncanny resemblance to the poet Anna Akhmatova in her mid-20s.

Boris wrote that the face is ‘full of calm dignity.’ He also wrote that he was trying to capture her ‘touching motherly care’ and ‘culminating vision of her child.’ Perhaps he was thinking of Anna queuing outside the Kresty prison to bring food to her son Lev, incarcerated in a gulag.

In this mosaic, Boris transforms the woman he had abandoned almost 40 years earlier into an icon of endurance and acceptance.

He uses an unconventional spelling of Saint Anne in the mosaic and calls her Anna. Additionally, the saint’s image bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the poet Anna Akhmatova in her mid-20s.

Did Boris still love Anna, the woman who had remained his muse throughout almost 40 in exile?

During those four decades, Anna stayed on in St Petersburg, which became Leningrad, and she suffered throughout the Stalinist years. Gumilev, Punin and Mandelstam were murdered, and her son Lev spent years in a gulag.

For 30 years, Anna lived in an apartment in the Fountain House, a former palace in St Petersburg. It is now a museum to her memory and to that of her husbands, Nikolai Gumilev and Nikolai Punin, and her friend Osip Mandelstam, who were all murdered by the Stalinist regime.

For many years, Boris and Anna did not communicate. But they met again, and for the last time, in 1965, where Paris had been living since the end of World War II. Anna had been shortlisted in 1965 for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Sadly, Boris and Anna had little to say to each other. Anna had immortalised Boris in her poems in Russia, Boris had immortalised Anna in his mosaics and icons in London and Mullingar. But East is East and West is West, and the last meeting lacked the love and romance of their first encounters.

After receiving an honorary doctorate from Oxford University, Anna suffered a heart attack and was taken to hospital in Oxford. From there, she was moved to a sanitorium in Moscow, and she died on 5 March 1966 at the age of 76.

Boris spent his last years were spent in Hyde Park Gardens with Maud Russell. His last great work, completed when Boris was almost 80, is the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in Westminster Cathedral which went back in style to the pre-Byzantine Roman mosaics, with little gold and far from the expected monumental sightless figures. They are full of colour, light and rhythm.

Boris Anrep died in London on 7 June 1969. He was cremated at Golder’s Green and his ashes were taken away. According to some sources, his ashes were buried at Mottisfont Abbey, where Maud Russel was buried in the family mausoleum.

Boris Anrep’s image of Christ the King in his Saint Patrick mosaic draws on the composition of the Visitation of Abraham or the Old Testament Trinity best known in the West in the work of Andrei Rublev (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018; click on images for full-screen views)

Mullingar Cathedral declares Catholic triumphalism in post-independent Ireland

The Cathedral of Christ the King in Mullingar, Co Westmeath … a landmark building in the Irish Midlands (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

The Cathedral of Christ the King in the centre of Mullingar, Co Westmeath, is a landmark building in the Irish Midlands. The campanile towers and the dome dominate the skyline and approaches to Mullingar for many miles around, and the silhouette of the cathedral has become a symbol of Mullingar.

This is the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Meath and it stands at the top of Mary Street, at the junction with College Street and Bishop’s Gate Street, towering above the centre of the county town of Westmeath.

Mullingar Cathedral is yet another statement by the Dublin-based architect Ralph Byrne of the confidence of Roman Catholicism in post-independence Ireland in the 1920s and 1930s, like his cathedral in Cavan and his strong emphatic churches in Athlone, Co Westmeath, and Harold’s Cross, Dublin.

I visited both his Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Athlone and his Cathedral of Christ the King in Mullingar while I was staying at Wineport Lodge outside Athlone earlier this month.

Byrne’s cathedral in Mullingar replaced an earlier cathedral, dedicated to Saint Mary, that stood on the same site from 1836. This was a large Gothic Revival T-plan church, with four octagonal turrets at the west front, and this, in turn, had replaced the parish chapel dating from 1730.

Planning for a new cathedral began in 1920. The building work began in March 1933 and the foundation stone was laid on 6 August 1933 by Thomas Mulvany, Bishop of Meath (1929-1943).

The new cathedral was designed by the Dublin-based architect, Ralph Henry Byrne (1877-1947). Byrne was noted for his academic approach to architectural design. He favoured the classical idiom for much of his church designs, moving away from the Gothic Revival-style, which had been in vogue for Roman Catholic building projects since the early 19th century.

Inside the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Byrne designed the cathedral to look like a basilica in form and renaissance in style. The distinctive twin towers, surmounted by bronze crosses, rise to a height of about 42.6 metres. The nave is 36.5 metres long and 15.2 metres wide. It follows the pattern of great Roman basilicas such as Saint Paul Outside the Walls.

Murphy of Dublin were the builders, while much of the artistic decoration work, including the marble altar goods and the bronze and brass fittings, was designed and fitted by Earley of Camden Street, Dublin, Gunning Smyth’s, and J and C McGloughlin of Dublin, and Oppenheimer of Old Trafford, Manchester.

The cathedral is designed on a complicated regular plan and on a north-south axis rather than an east-west axis. It has a seven-bay nave with a clerestory over and flanking single-storey side aisles, full-height transepts terminated by pediments, a broad apsidal chancel at the north or liturgical east end, and a circular drum with a copper dome above at the central crossing.

At the south side or liturgical west end, the cathedral has a central two-storey block with a pedimented breakfront and with colonnades or loggias at both the first and second floor levels. This is flanked by single-storey blocks on each side supporting the four-storey arcaded campanile towers, each crowned with limestone domes, topped with gilded cross finials.

The main, square-headed entrance has timber panelled double-doors, with a segmental-headed window over, to the centre of the south façade. It is set behind a Venetian-type arrangement of a central round-headed arch flanked by lower square-headed openings, divided by Doric columns in antis.

Albert Power’s elaborate sculpture on the tympanum of Mullingar Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The elaborate sculpture on the pediment or tympanum is in Portland stone by Albert George Power (1881-1945), the leading Irish sculptor of the 1920s and 1930s. It depicts the Virgin Mary handing over a model of the previous Gothic Revival cathedral into the care of Christ the King. There is a number of sculpted panels by H Thompson of Dublin on the front façade above the main entrances.

The cathedral is built of channelled ashlar granite, with extensive ashlar limestone and ashlar granite detailing. There is a variety of window openings, mostly square-headed with metal glazing bars and cut stone surrounds. The ground floor window openings in the nave are set in round-headed recesses. There are pitched roofs.

Inside, the vast open interior of the cathedral is reminiscent of the layout of a Roman basilica and seats over 1,800 people. It is lavishly decorated using different types and colours of marble and has least seven side chapels. There are numerous columns in various types of marble, including colonnades formed of paired Doric columns in Rochambeau marble, separated by high round-headed arches, giving access to the side aisles and to the transepts.

The mosaic in the apse in the sanctuary depicts the Ascension (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The mosaic in the apse in the sanctuary represents the Ascension. The cathedra or bishop’s throne and the chapter stalls were carved in Irish oak in Waterford.

There are seven individual side chapels in the cathedral, dedicated to Saint Patrick, Saint Anne, Saint Joseph and the Holy Family, Saint Therese of Lisieux as patron of Foreign Missions, a mortuary chapel, a Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament and a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes. Some of these chapels are decorated with mosaics by the Russian artist Boris Anrep (1883-1969).

The Baptistry is now the cathedral shop and the double baptism font has been moved to the top of the west or right-hand aisle.

The Stations of the Cross are in opus sectile and mosaic. The pulpit, of white marble, has carvings depicting the Sermon on the Mount, Saint John the Baptist and Saint Patrick. There is an extensive collection of marble altar goods and a number of bronze fittings and railings.

The new cathedral was formally opened and dedicated on 6 September 1936. At the request of Pope Pius XI, this became the first cathedral in the world to be dedicated to Christ the King. The cathedral was dedicated on 6 September 1936 and was solemnly consecrated on 4 September 1939. The total cost of the building, including decoration, was £250,000 to £275,000, an enormous sum for those days.

The Baptism Font has been moved to the top of the west (left) aisle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The works of art for which Mullingar Cathedral is most noted are the mosaics in the chapels of Saint Anne and Saint Patrick. These are the work of the Russian-born mosaic artist Boris Anrep, a celebrated artist and socialite, best known for his monumental mosaics at the National Gallery, Westminster Cathedral, and the Bank of England in London.

The Saint Patrick mosaic depicts Saint Patrick lighting the Paschal fire on the Hill of Slane. Saint Patrick is seen lifting the cross with one hand in a vigorous movement, and in his other hand he is holding a torch. The firewood is arranged in a Christogram, signifying the symbolic importance of the fire.

In the Saint Anne mosaic, her name is spelled Anna, and the image of Saint Anne is said to resemble the poet Anna Akhmatova. Anrep had an affair with her during World War I. But the story of Boris and Anna is worth returning to later today.

The entrance porch in the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Byrne was the architect of choice for the Roman Catholic Church at this time and during the 1930s his commissions included the new cathedral in Cavan and the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Athlone, Co Westmeath, during the 1930s.

In Mullingar, Byrne calls on an eclectic mix of architectural styles, drawing on the classical imperial traditions of Rome, the work of Palladio, the Italian Baroque, Webb and perhaps even the neoclassicism of James Gandon and the work of Sir Edwin Lutyens in New Delhi.

Despite Byrne’s seemingly ad hoc use of classical styles, his cathedral in Mullingar is a polished architectural work. The stark cold ashlar granite on the façade contrasts with the opulence of the marble interior. The façade is a complex arrangement of classical elements, giving out a strong message of triumphalism, and is dominated on the upper storey by the pedimented temple with inset Corinthian columns.

The cathedral is set back from a busy junction in the town centre in extensive mature grounds, with the Bishop’s Residence to one side, a school in its own grounds on the other side, north-east and a large forecourt and car park at the front.

Mullingar Cathedral has been compared in terms of architectural style and ambition to the state-sponsored architectural projects built in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy at the same time. Other critics are kinder when they say this is one of the most stylishly triumphant cathedrals in Ireland, offering visitors ‘an overwhelming experience.’

Whatever you think of it, this massive and extensively detailed cathedral is a monumental statement of the confidence, power and the authority of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland in the first decades after Irish independence.

The towers and dome of Mullingar Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)