infomatique

THE CATHEDRAL OF ST PETER AND PAUL IN NEWTOWN TRIM

January 1, 2023 by infomatique

NEWTOWN ABBEY AND NEARBY CHRISTMAS DAY 2022

I last photographed the area in detail about eight years ago. Today I used a Sony FX30 camera and used an iPhone 12 Pro Max as a backup which I actually needed as my Sony battery failed.

There are so many historic sites in or near Trim that it is almost impossible to uniquely identify them.

Newtown Abbey is located about 1.2 km (¾ mile) east of Trim town centre, on the north bank of the Boyne. The main building is the Church of St Peter and St Paul (sometimes called a cathedral). The abbey church features lancet windows, with Norman-style sedilia to the right of the altar, and a double piscina for washing communion vessels.

A smaller church in the east of the monastery is the parish church of Newtown Clonbun. This is the burial site of Lucas Dillon (1530 – 1592), Attorney General for Ireland and Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer, and his first wife Jane Bathe. Their tomb effigies are separated by a sword of state, and so they gained the local nickname of the “jealous man and woman”.

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MAUDLIN CEMETERY IN TRIM

December 30, 2022 by infomatique

FEATURING OUR LADY OF TRIM

BECTIVE ABBEY BRIDGE

PRIORY OF ST JOHN THE BAPTIST

FR. ANDY FARRELL WAY

St. Mary’s Abbey was home to “Our Lady of Trim”, a wooden statue reported to work miracles. The statue made Trim a major pilgrimage site from at least 1397. During the Reformation, the statue was burned and Henry VIII dissolved the abbey. The abbey’s bell tower, the “Yellow Steeple”, is the primary remnant of St. Mary’s.

The Maudlin Cemetery which was the site of the Leper Hospital of Mary Magdalene, and later a cemetery which was used as a burial ground for the poor who died in the workhouse.

I have visited the Trim many times as my mother’s immediate family live in Trim or are from the area but I was unaware of this old cemetery until I came across it today.

In 1892 Lord Walter Fitzgerald produced an account of this cemetery and here is a short extract: “This burial ground contains the old church of St. Mary Magdalen of which the chancel arch still survives. It is situated close to the town of Trim on its south side and seems now to be only used as a burial place for paupers who die in the trim workhouse nearby. Only two tombstones seem to have survived and they are situated to the east of the church ruins”.

I think that there are a few Maudlin Cemeteries in Ireland but I know, without doubt, that there is one in Naas which I have yet to photograph. The name is archaically spelled Maudlings; derives from Mary Magdalene, often depicted in art as mourning for Jesus after his crucifixion, and thus associated with burial grounds (cf. maudlin).

CHRIST CRUCIFIED

November 25, 2022 by infomatique

MOUNT ARGUS CHURCH IN DUBLIN

Constituted 1974. The Church and Monastery of Mount Argus have been home of the Passionist Congregation since 1856. The Church houses the shrine of Saint Charles of Mount Argus who lived here from 1857 until his death in 1893. His feast day is celebrated on the 5th January.

TWO CHURCHES AND A PUBLIC PARK

November 22, 2022 by infomatique

ST AUDOEN’S

St Audoen’s park was closed to the public for a number of years but it was reopened in March 2019.

I was surprised to learn that the park is fairly recent as it first opened in the 1980s and it also surprised me to learn that the nearby church is still active.

The main set of steps leads to a new forecourt area in front of the West Door of St Audoen’s Church. A number of archaeological features, uncovered by the works, have been incorporated into the paths through the park including stone setts of a former laneway that ran through the area called Keysers Lane, medieval cobbles and some Georgian-era paving tiles.

The park now includes a series of interactive sound-based installations for children, as well as a new memorial water feature, recalling the children who lost their lives during the Easter Rising 1916.

St. Audoen’s Park is significant in historical terms. Located adjacent to St. Audoen’s Church (1300 A.D.), it incorporates the first stone city wall dating from about 1100 A.D.; St. Audoen’s Arch, the last surviving entrance to the old city; and Fagan’s Gate.

The City Wall was restored in 1976 as part of Architectural Heritage Year and the park development of 1982 won a prestigious civic award. Audoen was a 7th – century Bishop of Rouen (France) and the nearby church named after him is reputedly one of the oldest still used for regular religious services.

St Audoen’s Church (Church Of Ireland) is the church of the parish of Saint Audoen in the Church of Ireland, located south of the River Liffey at Cornmarket in Dublin, Ireland. This was close to the centre of the medieval city. The parish is in the Diocese of Dublin and Glendalough. St Audoen’s is the oldest parish church in Dublin and is still used as such. There is a Roman Catholic church of the same name adjacent to it.

The architect Thomas Drew was the first to draw serious attention to the importance of the church, architecturally and historically, in 1866. He produced detailed plans of the church for which he won an award from the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, carried out excavations and drew up a paper on the church and its history. In a booklet published in 1873, the rector Alexander Leeper urged reroofing and restoration of the church.

In the 1980s an extensive restoration of the tower and bells was carried out. A few years later St Anne’s chapel, which had lost its roof and many monuments, was re-roofed and converted to a visitor reception centre, which included an exhibition on the history of the church.

During conservation works starting in 1996 an extensive excavation of a small section of the church was carried out, which cast new light on the early days of the church. This contributed greatly to an understanding of the building history of the church. The detailed results of this study were published in book form in 2006.

St Audoen’s (Catholic) is the church of the parish of St Audoen that is located south of the River Liffey at Cornmarket in Dublin, Ireland. The parish is in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin. The church is now home to the Polish chaplaincy in Ireland. There is an Anglican church of the same name adjacent to it. The church was built between 1841 and 1847 to the neoclassical design of Patrick Byrne who also designed nearby St. Paul’s Church on Arran Quay and Church of the Immaculate Conception (Adam and Eve’s) on Merchants Quay. The cornerstone was laid in July 1841. A founding member donor being Daniel O’Connell.

St. Audoen’s houses the National Shrine of St. Anne. The site on which the church is built formerly housed a college to accommodate the chaplains to the Guild of St Anne’s, originally known as Blakeney Inns and later St. Anne’s Inns. The statue of St. Anne was made by Deghini’s of Fishamble Street, Dublin, and was donated by a Mrs. Kelly in 1919.

A central dome positioned over the crossing of the nave was the main external feature of the church until it collapsed in 1880 and was replaced with a flat roof. It has a double-level crypt to compensate for the steeply sloping site. In 1898 the portico including the piazza to the front and railings was added by George Ashlin. The pediment over portico has a granite frieze supported on granite Corinthian columns. Like the earlier St. Paul’s, above the pediment are carved statues at each end and at the apex.

The walls are constructed of Black calp and are best appreciated from Cook Street from where their sheer bulk dominates the area and the Medieval Dublin City Walls. Because of its steeply sloping site, the church has a double level crypt to the rear.

The interior, which has a coffered barrel-vaulted ceiling, is lit by lunette windows high above the walls. The statue of Our Lady’s Altar is by Peter Bonanni of Rome, which won a gold medal at the Dublin Exhibition in 1853.

The holy water stoups on either side of the main doors are giant clam shells that were donated in 1917 by a Pacific Ocean sea captain as a gift to his brother, the parish priest at the time.

Until December 2007 the church hosted a regular Tridentine (Latin) Mass. The church has experienced a resurgence of attendance due to the influx of Polish immigrants who regularly celebrate mass in the church in their native language. St Audoen’s Church is now home to the Polish chaplaincy in Ireland.

ABBEY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS

November 18, 2022 by infomatique

AS SEEN FROM THE GARDEN OF REMEMBRANCE

I refer to it as a work in progress because I do not remember ever seeing it without scaffolding around the spire.

Abbey Presbyterian Church is a church located at Parnell Square, Dublin. Designed by architect Andrew Heiton of Perth, Scotland, it is a decorated Gothic building, with a spire 180 feet (54.9 m) high. The church was erected in 1864.

Over a century and a half this church gone through several name changes: Rutland Square Presbyterian, Abbey Presbyterian, and colloquially as ‘Findlater’s Church’ (after the Dublin merchant who paid for the construction of the building); and through seismic shifts culturally, historically, socially and economically. Indeed the reconstituting and renaming of the congregation came as a direct result of the 1916 Easter Rising and its aftermath.