George Goldie: A Catholic Architect in Post-Famine Ireland

Abstract

George Goldie: A Catholic Architect in Post-Famine Ireland Caoimhín de Bhailís The nineteenth century saw the Catholic Church in Ireland express its newfound status after Emancipation in an expansive church building programme. Figures upward of two thousand have been given for the number of Roman Catholic churches either reconstructed or newly built between 1800 and 1870.1 This does not infer that there were no Catholic churches being built in the late eighteenth century nor does the increased output in ecclesiastical building after the Famine imply a lack of building prior to 1845. St Finbarr’s (South), Cork, was built in 1766, replacing an earlier church of 1728 and St Patrick’s, Waterford, 1764, and The Holy Trinity, Kildoagh, Cavan, 1796, no longer in use, are still extant pre-Emancipation churches that demonstrated a subdued presence, but nonetheless a re-emerging Catholic impact on the topography of the country. Thomas P Kennedy suggests that, even as early as 1752, ‘registered places of Catholic worship totalled 832 simple Mass houses and 52 private chapels’.2 In some cases, earlier nineteenth-century churches were replaced from the late 1840s onwards to assert the increased power of the Catholic Church, architecture acting as a symbol of its new-found status. The Church of the Immaculate Conception in Farran, Co. Cork, 1860, was constructed as a replacement for an earlier, smaller building; it was consecrated on 20 August 1860 and replaced the earlier church that was described by Samuel Lewis in 1837 as ‘a large plain old building’.3 The old church had a thatched roof and stood witness to the ‘poverty of the times in which it was erected’.4 Rev. Canon Walsh was credited with the drive to have the old church replaced and he was memorialised by a monument in the nearby church in Ovens5 . The monument was designed and its erection overseen by the architect George Goldie free of charge, ‘desirous of his regard and respect for the memory of the deceased’.6 It was removed when the building was renovated during the 1970s and all that remains of the memorial monument is the dedication tablet hidden from Studies • volume 109 • number 434 177 public view in the sacristy. Canon Walsh had engaged Goldie as the architect of the new church at Farran. Goldie was also the architect for St John’s Church in nearby Ballincollig and the interior of St Mary’s Dominican church in Cork city when it was renovated during the 1860s. He also completed the church of St Vincent’s in Cork and designed the presbytery. George Goldie Goldie was just one of many architects active in Ireland during this period, but he is one that has often been neglected when one considers both his output in Ireland and his Catholicity in a religiously contentious era. A preliminary survey by this author finds he was involved in upwards of forty completed builds, alterations or completions. This may appear to be a limited output in the overall number of churches built during the period, as outlined earlier, but we must remember that the Pugins had fewer solo outputs. A W N Pugin is listed in the Dictionary of Irish Architects as being involved in nineteen ecclesiastical commissions, Edward in nine in addition to St Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, and other works as part of the partnership Pugin & Ashlin. Moreover, Ashlin and James Joseph McCarthy were both resident in Ireland, while Goldie, although a regular visitor, was based in England. Goldie’s reputation as an architect and the projects he was employed to design and oversee should come as no surprise given his output in England, where he designed numerous churches and cathedrals including St Wilfrid’s, York, and Our Lady of Victories, Kensington. Goldie also came from a family that was very much Catholic in their religious affiliation as well as in his architectural endeavours. George Goldie was born in York, United Kingdom, on 9 June 1828, and died in Saint Servan, Brittany, on 1 March 1887. He was what was termed in the nineteenth century a ‘cradle Catholic’, that is, he was born into that faith rather than being a convert from Anglicanism...