The Cathedral of the Good Shepherd, designed by Denis Lane McSwiney from Cork, is the oldest Roman Catholic church in Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
During our visit to Singapore last month, I visited a large number of churches, cathedrals and other places of worship, and admired the work of a number of Irish-born architects, including
George Drumgoole Coleman (1795-1844) from Drogheda, who designed the original Saint Andrew’s Cathedral, the Armenian Church and many public buildings, and Denis Santry (1879-1960) who was born in Cork.
The Cathedral of the Good Shepherd in Singapore was designed by yet another Irish-born architect, Denis Lane McSwiney (1800-1867), who was also born in Cork, and who returned to live there when he retired. The cathedral is the oldest Roman Catholic church in Singapore. It sits within shaded grounds in the Museum Planning Area in the Civic District of Singapore, and it is bounded by Queen Street, Victoria Street and Bras Basah Road.
The Roman Catholic Church in Singapore at first was part of the Diocese of Malacca, established in 1558. But the history of a continuous Catholic presence in Singapore begins soon after Singapore was established as a British trading port in 1819, when European Catholics started arriving on the island.
Singapore was transferred to the Vicariate Apostolic of Ava and Pegu in 1838 and then to the Vicariate Apostolic of Siam in 1840. In 1841, the Catholic Church in Singapore was placed under the jurisdiction of the Vicariate Apostolic of Western Siam, the Vicariate Apostolic of the Malay Peninsula and then the Vicariate Apostolic of Malacca-Singapore.
The site of the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd in Singapore was allotted by the Resident Councillor, George Bonham, to Father Jean-Baptiste Boucho (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
At first, Catholic Masses were celebrated in private homes, including the home of the Irish-born architect Denis McSwiney, until a small chapel was built.
The chapel was built wood and attap and had neither a tower nor spire. This first chapel stood on the site of the former Saint Joseph’s Institution buildings, now the site of the Singapore Art Museum, but it soon was too small for the rapidly expanding Catholic congregation.
Father Jean-Marie Beurel, a priest from the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (MEP), secured a plot of land from the government to build a brick-and-mortar church. Denis McSwiney helped secure the site, which was allotted by the Resident Councillor, George Bonham, to Father Jean-Baptiste Boucho, a French missionary who had come from Penang.
The Government surveyor, John Turnbull Thomson (1821-1884), prepared the first design for the church, but it was considered too expensive to build and difficult to maintain. The design that was then accepted was by Denis McSwiney.
Donations came from both the local Catholics and Catholics abroad, including Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily who was then the Queen of France, and later from Archbishop Michael J O’Doherty of Manila, who was from Co Mayo.
Inside the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd, facing east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The church was designed by Denis Lane McSwiney (1800-1867) or Denis Lesley McSwiney from Cork, who came to Singapore in 1828. He was born in Cork on 11 October 1800, one of eight children of Patrick McSwiney and Ellen McSwiney; his brothers included two priests, Father Daniel McSwiney (1787-1845), parish priest of Bandon, Co Cork, and Father Patrick McSwiney (1791-1865), President of the Irish College, Paris (1828-1850).
McSwiney joined the East India Company and became a staff sergeant and then a public works sub-conductor, working in Madras (Chennai) and at Fort St George, the first English fortress in India. He married Anne Marren in Fort St George on 19 March 1825, and their first son, Patrick McSwiney, was born there in 1826 and baptised on Saint Patrick’s Day, 17 March. Denis McSwiney arrived with his family in Singapore in 1828. His daughter Ellen was born there in 1829, but died eight days later.
In Singapore, McSwiney became a merchant and contractor and clerk to the Irish-born architect
George Drumgoole Coleman (1795-1844) from Drogheda.
Coleman was the first Superintendent of Public Works in Singapore and had a key role in designing and building much of early Singapore after it was founded by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819. His surviving buildings in Singapore include the Armenian Church, Maxwell’s House, later the Old Parliament House, Caldwell House and, perhaps, the Jamae Mosque that gives its name to Mosque Street.
McSwiney was the father of two more children who were born in Singapore: a son Daniel Lawrence McSwiney (1830) and a daughter Julianna (1833-1862).
Anne McSwiney died at the age of 33 on 1 November 1833; Denis returned to Ireland on leave in 1835 and resigned from the East India Company on 4 January 1836. He married his second wife, Catherine (Kate) Mary Harnett, in Cork on 28 November 1836. They returned to Singapore, and two more daughters were born there: Maryann (1837) and Helen (1838).
The High Altar and sanctuary in the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
On McSwiney’s return, the French bishop celebrated Mass in his house on the corner of Bras Basah and Queen Street. Denis was involved in securing a site for the church, building work began on 18 June1843, and the Church of the Good Shepherd
was completed on 6 June 1847.
His work done, McSwiney left Singapore for good with his second wife Kate and their children. They left on 7 October 1847 on board the Eleanor Russell and arrived in London four months later on 12 February 1848. They then returned home to Ballyvolane House, Cork, which had been the McSwiney family home for several generations.
His surviving son Daniel Lawrence emigrated to the US at the age of 19 in 1849. His only surviving daughter Marian Josephine married Robert Ferguson, of Queenstown (Cobh).
Denis McSwiney died at the age of 66 at Adelaide Terrace, Cork, on 22 August 1867. His will included property at Ballyvolane and in Singapore. His widow Catherine died in Queenstown (Cobh) aged 72 on 15 December 1869.
McSwiney designed only one other known building in Singapore: the first Assembly Rooms was built on the site of the old Hill Street Police Station, but it had become unserviceable in 1858, 10 years after it was built.
A monument to John Connolly from Tullamore who laid the foundation stone of the Church of the Good Shepherd in 1843 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The foundation stone of the Church of the Good Shepherd was blessed by Bishop Jean-Paul-Hilaire-Michel Courvezy, Vicar Apostolic of Malacca-Singapore, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, 18 June 1843, and was laid by John Connolly, a merchant from Tullamore, King’s County (Offaly). The completed church was blessed and opened by Father Beurel on 6 June 1847.
McSwiney’s design was said to owe much to Coleman’s original Saint Andrew’s Church, but it was inspired by two churches in London: Saint Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, and Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square.
The cathedral is in the shape of a Latin cross, and its Tuscan columns surround the perimeters of the church. The stained-glass panels above the entrance doors and windows include one depicting the Madonna and Child, and another with Saint Joseph.
The main entrance at the west end of the cathedral serves as the porte-cochère (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The main entrance at the west end of the cathedral serves as the porte-cochère. The two side entrances at the nave are in the form of diminutive porticos and are smaller and less imposing than the entrances at the ends of the transept.
Over the centre door is a statue of the Good Shepherd in a niche, with an inscription over it that reads ‘I am the Good Shepherd’.
The nave is a simple hall without aisles. There are two transepts, also without aisles, and these are screened off by two doric columns on each side.
The eight large windows in the nave together with the other six at the transept and two at the sacristy are arched. Originally there were eight large windows in the transept until the walling up of the two fronting Victoria Street. The original timber louvred casements of the windows were replaced by glass shutters with green glass in 1937. The stained glass windows in the lunettes of the nave and transept windows were presented to the cathedral by Bishop Charles Arsène Bourdon.
The timber ceiling is in a concave form and is made up of three rows of six rectangular panels. All 18 panels are rather simply ornamented, with a simple rectangular border and a ceiling rose at their centres. The ceiling roses in the centre row are larger and more elaborate than those in the side rows. From the centre of each circle hangs a lamp.
The ceiling edge ends in a deeply moulded plaster cornice that runs along the length of the cathedral. As the height of the east end has been raised at different times, the dimensions of the entablature no longer relate to the columns properly, as their bases have been raised.
There are two confessionals to the left and right side of the nave and they are topped with pediments ornamented with a circle and cross at the centre. The Stations of the Cross are a set of 14 oil paintings on the walls of the nave. At the crossing is the final grave of Bishop Edouard Gasnier, the first bishop of the revived Diocese of Malacca.
The baptistry is in the north transept.
There are memorial plaques to John Connolly, Bishop Michel-Esther Le Turdu and Father Jean-Marie Beurel.
The 30-stop pipe organ in the choir loft is the oldest working pipe organ in Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The 30-stop pipe organ in the choir loft was installed by Bevington & Sons of London in 1912. It is the oldest working pipe organ in Singapore and the only pipe organ in a Roman Catholic Church in Singapore.
The cathedral was once lit with Victorian crystal chandeliers, but these have since been replaced with simpler lamps. Electric lighting was introduced in 1913 and electric fans in 1914.
The steeple was added in 1847 to a design by the Scottish architect Charles Andrew Dyce, modelled on the steeple John Turnbull Thomson added to the Saint Andrew’s Cathedral. It has three distinct sections: a rectangular cuboid base, an octagonal mid-section, and a six-sided conical top. A budded cross surmounts the steeple.
The three cathedral bells were cast by the Crouzet-Hildebrand Foundry in Paris.
The dedication to the Good Shepherd is associated with Saint Laurent-Joseph-Marius Imbert. It is said Father (later Bishop) Imbert was the first Catholic priest to celebrate Mass in Singapore, when he was on his way to Korea. Bishop Imbert was betrayed and arrested at a time when Catholics were being persecuted in Korea. He encouraged his fellow priests to surrender to prevent the extermination of Catholics in Korea, telling them ‘the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.’ He was beheaded on 21 September 1839.
When news of the Korean martyrs reached Singapore, it inspired Bishop Boucho and Father Beurel to name the new church after the Good Shepherd. Bishop Imbert and the other Korean martyrs were canonised in 1984, and his relics are enshrined in the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd.
Within the cathedral grounds, the original Parochial House was built in 1859 and is now Archbishop’s House. A second Parochial House, now the Cathedral Rectory, was designed by Father Charles-Benedict Nain and built in 1911.
Father Beurel was also built two mission schools in Singapore. He visited Paris in 1851 to recruit teachers and two teaching congregations – the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (Christian Brothers) and the Congregation of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ) – came to Singapore and founded Saint Joseph’s Institution and the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus.
The bishop's cathedra in the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd … the church became a cathedral in 1888 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The church became a cathedral in 1888 when the Diocese of Malacca was revived. Bishop Edouard Gasnier, the first bishop of the revived Diocese of Malacca died in 1896 and is buried in the cathedral. His successor, Bishop René-Michel-Marie Fée, was consecrated bishop in the cathedral in 1896, and he consecrated the church as a cathedral on 14 February 1897.
Improvements to the cathedral were gradual. The dwarf wall, gate pillars and ornamental cast iron gates and railings around the grounds were completed in 1908.
When the Japanese occupied Singapore during World War II, the cathedral was used as an emergency hospital.
The Cathedral of the Good Shepherd was gazetted a national monument on 28 June 1973.
A major structural restoration of the cathedral in 2013-2016 addressed structural defects caused by new developments nearby. A new annexe building and basement were built at this time. The cathedral reopened on 20 November 2016 and was rededicated on 14 February 2017, 120 years after the original consecration in 1897.
The grounds include a bronze life-size statue of Pope John Paul II, a 7.38 meter-high cross, statues of the Virgin Mary and the Good Shepherd, and a statue of the Homeless Jesus by Timothy Schmaltz.
The Diocese of Malacca became the Archdiocese of Malacca in 1953, the Archdiocese of Malacca-Singapore in 1955, and the Archdiocese of Singapore in 1972. The present Archbishop of Singapore is Cardinal William Goh.
The Cathedral of the Good Shepherd was gazetted a national monument in 1973 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
