Honan Chapel
The Honan Chapel is a small Catholic church built in the Hiberno-Romanesque revival style on the grounds of University College Cork, Ireland. Designed in 1914, the building was completed in 1916 and furnished by 1917. Its architecture and fittings are representative of the Celtic Revival movement and evoke the Insular art style prevalent in Ireland and Britain between the 7th and 12th centuries.
Its construction was initiated and supervised by the Dublin solicitor John O'Connell, a leading member of the Celtic Revival and Arts and Crafts movements. He was funded by Isabella Honan, the last member of a wealthy Cork family, who made a significant donation towards the construction of the chapel. O'Connell oversaw both the design and the commissioning of its building and furnishings, guiding the architect James F. McMullen, the builders John Sisk and Sons, and the numerous craftsmen and artists involved in its artwork.
The Honan Chapel is known for its interior which is designed and fitted in a traditional Irish style, but with an appreciation of contemporary trends in international art. Its furnishings include a mosaic flooring, altar plate, metalwork and enamels, liturgical textiles and sanctuary furnishings, and especially its nineteen stained glass windows. Of these, fifteen depict Irish saints, the remainder show Jesus, Mary, St. Joseph and St. John. Eleven were designed and installed by Harry Clarke, while the other eight are by A. E. Child, Catherine O'Brien and Ethel Rhind of An Túr Gloine cooperative studio. In 1986, the sculptor Imogen Stuart was commissioned to oversee the installation of a new altar and other carvings, furnishings and fittings.
Background and construction
and urbanisation in early 20th-century Ireland led to the development of a number of suburbs around Cork, which necessitated the building of churches to serve these new areas; the Honan Chapel was the first church to be built in Cork in the new century. Its genesis was rooted in a longstanding educational disagreement between the Protestant and Catholic hierarchies. Queen's College Cork was incorporated in 1845 as part of a nationwide series of new universities known as the Queen's Colleges. Although the Colleges were intended to be non-denominational, the lack of provision for any religious instruction made them unacceptable to the Irish Catholic bishops, who strongly discouraged Catholics from attending, and in 1851 founded the Catholic University of Ireland.In 1911, the Queen's Colleges ceased as legal entities. The Irish Universities Act 1908 forbade government funding for any "church, chapel, or other place of religious worship or observance"; thus any centre for Catholic students would have to be built with private funding.
Isabella Honan was the heir to the fortune of a wealthy Catholic family of butter merchants. When Honan died in 1913, she left £40,000 to the city of Cork, including £10,000 which her executor, a Dublin solicitor John O'Connell, was instructed to use to establish a centre of worship for Catholic students in UCC, along with other charitable and educational purposes. These monies became known as the Honan Fund.
O'Connell used part of the funds to provide scholarships for Catholic students at UCC and acquired the site of St. Anthony's Hall from the Franciscan order to develop an accommodation block for male Catholic students known as the Honan Hostel.
The Honan Chapel was one of the first modern Irish churches conceived with a thematic design not directed by the clergy. O'Connell entered the priesthood in 1929, after the death of his wife. He was an active member of the Celtic Revival movement, a member of both the Irish Arts and Crafts Committees and the Royal Irish Academy, a fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, and chairman of the Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland in 1917. He was deeply interested in ecclesiastical archaeology and sought to construct a chapel that was "something more than merely sufficient... a church designed and fashioned on the same lines and on the same plan as those which their forefathers had built for their priests and missioners all over Ireland nearly a thousand years ago." He disliked the contemporary, international approach to church buildingwhich he described as "machine made"preferring a localised and uniquely Irish approach to style and form, which he sought from the most skilled local craftsmen available. He wanted work on the chapel to be "carried out in Cork, by Cork labour and with materials obtained from the City or County of Cork".
O'Connell was assisted in the project by the university president, Sir Bertram Windle. The art historian Virginia Teehan describes O'Connell and Windle as not only devout Catholics, but especially single-minded, creative and energetic. O'Connell employed the firm of Cork architects James Finbarre McMullen and Associates. The building's plans were drawn up in 1914. The contractor John Sisk, also from Cork, was the principal builder and undertook the work at a cost of £8,000. The foundation stone, laid on 18 May 1915 by Thomas A. O'Callaghan D.D., Bishop of Cork, records that the chapel was built "by the charity of Isabella Honan for the scholars and students of Munster". It was consecrated on 5 November 1916 and dedicated to Saint Finbarr, patron saint of Cork and of the Diocese of Cork, on grounds believed to be close to an early Christian monastic site founded by the saint.
Architecture
O'Connell was mainly inspired by medieval architecture, and the Honan Chapel's architectural style is Hiberno-Romanesque revival. Compared to the decorative and sculpted elements of the interior, its architecture, austere and modest, was described by architectural historian and conservationist Frank Keohane in 2020 as "a little too commonplace and formulaic". The chapel is located on a hillside overlooking the valley of the River Lee, near a site thought to contain one of Finbarr's original churches. The western entrance is approached through double-hinged wrought iron gates. Its façade was influenced by the 12th-century St. Cronan's Church, Roscrea and features an arcade and gabled wall. The side walls project slightly beyond the gables to form antae, described by Keohane as "surmounted by improbable pinnacles...and probably better regarded as clasping buttresses".The chapel's interior has a simple layout consisting of a main entrance, a six-bay nave, and a two-bay square chancel. It does not contain either lateral aisles or transepts. The oblong nave measures 72 by 28 feet. Above, a timber barrel vaulted ceiling ends at the chancel; this is 26 by 18 feet. The nave lacks shrines where worshippers normally light candles or place flowers near devotional images; in this sense, it is similar to a Protestant church. The plain, round bell tower is based on the 12th-century Irish round tower on Teampull Finghin in Clonmacnoise, County Offaly.
The mouldings around the tops of the five arches on the west façade are carved with lozenge and pellet decoration. The doorway at one point had an iron grille which has since been removed. It is capped by three limestone ribbed vaults, supported by capitals carrying reliefs of the heads of six Munster saints: Finbarr of Cork, Coleman of Cloyne; Gobnait of Ballyvourney; Brendan of Kerry, Declán of Ardmore and Íte of Killeedy. The reliefs were sculpted by Henry Emery, assisted by students at the nearby Cork School of Art. The tympanum over the door was designed by the sculptor Oliver Sheppard and is dominated by the figure of St. Finbarr, dressed in bishop's vestments.
The timber doors hang on wrought iron strapwork hinges designed by the architect William Scott in a "Celticized art nouveau" style. The sacristy is on the north side under the bell tower. The building is listed as a protected structure under Section 51 of the Irish Planning and Development Act.
Altar
The original altar table was built from a slab of local limestone, chosen as a reaction against the ornately carved Italian marble then in fashion with church builders. It contained silver ornaments fitted by the Dublin gold and silversmith Edmond Johnson and William Egan and Sons of St Patrick's Street, Cork. The altar was positioned on a five-legged table, each leg of which was embedded with an Irish crucifix formed from simple geometric designs, including zig-zag patterns in lozenge and saltire, continuous dots and chevrons.The altar was replaced in 1986 when the chapel was considered to contravene the requirements of the Second Vatican Council in several ways: it was based on medieval churches and the old rites; it was built with a large spatial divide between the nave and chancel; and the altar was positioned at the very back of the chancel with the priest facing away from the congregation. That year, the chapel authorities commissioned the architect Richard Hurley to redesign elements of its fixtures. He in turn employed the German-Irish sculptor Imogen Stuart, aided by John and Teresa Murphy, to undertake a redevelopment, including replacement of the altar, pulpit, ceremonial chairs and baptismal font.
Stuart works with other materials but favours wooden carvings, as exemplified by those at the front of the Honan altar. Her replacement altar, constructed in oak, depicts two of the Evangelists. Being movable, it allowed clergy and attendants to be closer to the congregation. Although the altar was first intended for the centre of the chancel at the focal point of the mosaic floor, this arrangement proved to be too far back and was impractical during ceremonies.
Tabernacle
The tabernacle is positioned at the far end of the chancel and is the chapel's focal point. It is formed from carved stone and shaped in a manner reminiscent of the arched roofs and entrances of medieval Irish churches. Its upper, triangular panel is set in the gable of the "entrance" and shows the Trinity of God the Father, Jesus crucified, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove; around them, two angels carry the sun, moon and other symbols of creation.The lower, rectangular panel represents the doorway and is set against a background of branches and leaves attached in silver-gilt; it shows the Lamb of God standing on a brightly coloured altar decorated with three-ringed crosses and two angels acting as servers kneeling before it. The dove is surrounded by what Teehan describes as "the deep blue void of Heaven". Here, he is accompanied by flights of angels, carrying instruments of the Passion. The enamel embellishments are by the Irish craftsman and stained glass specialist Oswald Reeves and described by Teehan as the best of his work.