Ballaghaderreen Cathedral

Ballaghaderreen Cathedral is the cathedral church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Nathy.

Ballaghaderreen is a market town in County Roscommon. It is the see town of the small Catholic diocese of Achonry which comprises parts of Counties Mayo, Roscommon and Sligo.

Even before, but particularly after, Catholics attained religious emancipation in Ireland in 1829 following centuries of suppression after the Reformation, they began to build stone churches. As their confidence grew, so also did the size of their churches. Because there are so many of these churches still in use throughout Ireland, there is a tendency to overlook their quality and attractions.

Architects

One good example is Ballaghaderreen Cathedral. The plan to build the Cathedral came from Bishop Patrick Durcan (1852-75), the diocesan bishop in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. The commission to build the Cathedral went to the English architectural firm of Weightman, Hadfield and Goldie of in 1855. Matthew Ellison Hadfield (1812-85) set up an architectural practice in Sheffield in 1837 with J.G. Weightman: they were joined in 1850 by George Goldie (1828-1887). Weightman left the firm in 1858, and the design of the cathedral is generally ascribed to Hadfield and Goldie. It is thought that Hadfield was probably the main architect involved in this commission; he corresponded with Augustus Welby Pugin in 1849-50, and Pugin, as the designer of Enniscorthy Cathedral and Killarney Cathedral, would have had knowledge of the Irish architectural scene.

The Cathedral

( [http://www.lookwest.ie/Portals/8/BallaghaderreenCathedral.jpgImage] ) Within five years Ballaghaderreen had a Gothic church echoing medieval English and French models. The Cathedral from the town the tall tower and spire is visible for miles around in the flat landscape of north-west Roscommon. Curiously, however, this tower was not part of the original design, but a 1912 addition by the Dublin architect William H Byrne, who also installed a fine carillon of bells. In comparison with the height of the steeple, the main body of the church seems almost to cower behind it, though it is, in fact, quite a tall building in its own right.

The cathedral is build of gray limestone and 45.72m long, 17.9m wide and 20.4m high to the apex of the nave; the height to the tip of the spire is 56.9m.

Interior

The nave has seven bays with clerestory and lean-to-aisles. The aisled chancel is short, and its roof is lower than that of the nave. There are small transepts or sacristies leading off the north and south sites of the chancel. The south transept roof has a small bell-tower.

The impression on entering it is that of a lofty interior of the Late Middle Ages. The nave, with timbered ceiling, has lower side-aisles, also timber-roofed, and a tall arch leading to the chancel. The arch is flanked by paintings of The Annunciation and the diocesan patron, St Nathy, executed by Michael Gallagher in 1989, while the chancel roof depicts angels bearing verses from the "Benedicite".

tained Glass

The aisles have large two-light windows by Franz Mayer & Co. of Munich, which are original, while those over the confessionals are probably by Earley.The Saint John and Saint Anne windows of 1907 may be by Beatrice Elvery of An Túr Gloine, who also worked in Loughrea in the neighbouring county of Galway.

Further large windows commemorate Charles Dillon, 14th Viscount Dillon in the Baptistery, and Charles Strickland, the agent for Viscount Dillon, in a chapel on the south side of the sanctuary. Strickland was associated with the building of the neighbouring town of Charlestown and its church. The window was erected by the Bishop of Achonry and others to ‘ commemorate their respect and esteem for Charles Strickland and his wife Maria of Loughlynn and their zealous assistance in the erection of this Cathedral Church in 1860’. Saint Nathy and Saint Bridget are among the subjects featured in the large 6-light east window, and an arch painted with The Transfiguration allows a view past the organ, built in 1925 by Chesnutt of Waterford, and through an arch to the elaborate west window over the door.

On the south side of the west door is the former baptistery, donated by Lydia, Viscountess Dillon (d.1876) in memory of her husband, the 14th Viscount Dillon, who died on 18th November 1865.

The communion rail, of while marble and onyx colonettes, is divided into four sections which span the width of the cathedral in the easternmost bay of the nave. The chancel floor and steps are of white marble. The former high altar, with canopied and statued reredos of Caen stone, is of white with colonnades of marble and onyx; it was made by Henry Lane of Dublin. It is fronted by a new marble altar, introduced when the sanctuary was re-ordered in 1972.

Re-ordering

The Cathedral of the Annunciation and St. Nathy, Ballaghaderreen, is example of a minimalist approach to "reordering" that has succeeded in conserving much of the original fabric and fittings of the building. In the Early English idiom, a plan for a fan-vaulted ceiling had to be abandoned because of lack of funds. The external tower and spire are by W.H. Byrne. There are (and were) no choir stalls.

Bibliography

* Peter Galloway, The Cathedrals of Ireland, The Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen's University of Belfast, 1992