Basic HTML Version
BCD Special Report on
Historic Churches
18th annual edition
21
‘Perfected by the
Hand of Taste’
I
n 445ad,
around a century and a half before
St Augustine arrived in Canterbury, Patrick
(Patricius, Pátraic, or Pádraig) founded
within a hill-fort at Armagh (Ard-macha or
Ard-magha) the church which he decreed
should be pre-eminent in Ireland. Centuries
later, in 1261, Máel Pátraic Ó Scanaill was
elected Archbishop of Armagh, an appointment
ratified later that year by Pope Urban IV, and, in
1265, on the site which St Patrick had chosen,
he began work on a new cathedral-church,
the plan of which seems to have partially
survived in the present cruciform structure.
Ó Scanaill’s model was probably the church
at Mellifont in modern County Louth, and the
style appears to have been First Pointed Gothic
with lancet windows, traces of which are still
visible in the south transept. The body of the
nave and aisles owes its origins to works carried
out under Archbishop Milo Sweteman from
c1365, but the building as a whole underwent
draconian re-edifying in 1834–41 under Lewis
Nockalls Cottingham (1787–1847), who encased
it in alien red sandstone. Cottingham’s only
concession to Irishness can be found in the
crenellations of the crossing-tower. In 1838,
aspects of Cottingham’s interventions were
denounced in certain quarters for destroying
the ‘associations which the antiquity of the
building did and should excite, by making
it a regular English parish church… even
the reddish sandstone… has an English
look…’ .
1
There is a certain amount of truth
in this criticism, even though Cottingham
uncovered some genuine medieval fabric and
was himself a pioneer of the Gothic Revival.
The Church of Ireland (Anglican)
Cathedral of St Patrick, Armagh, would
not rank highly architecturally among the
larger churches in these islands, but it is of
considerable historical interest, and contains
a collection of funerary monuments of
national artistic and historical importance,
a fact recognised in the pages of the
Ulster
Gazette
, which noted (19 September 1885)
that the ‘memorial sculptures… are ranked
among the best work of its kind in Europe’.
Only three of these can be described and
illustrated in a short article, but they are of
superb quality and deserve to be better known.
The Drelincourt monument
Situated in the north aisle, this is distinguished
for the reclining figure carved by the Antwerp-
born John Michael Rysbrack (1694–1770). The
young Rysbrack executed funerary monuments
designed by the Scots architect James Gibbs
(1682–1754), and it was not long before he was
also realising designs by William Kent (c1685–
1748). With contacts such as these, Rysbrack
could hardly have gone wrong, and it was with
an architect, W Coleburne of London, that
he created one of Armagh’s most spectacular
funerary monuments, a Baroque work of
singular importance because it was one of the
first in these islands with which he was involved.
The monument commemorates Paris-
born Peter (Pierre) Drelincourt (1644–1722),
who graduated MA from Trinity College in
1681. Like many Huguenots, he did very well
in his new country, and in his case this was
largely due to the patronage from 1679 of
James Butler (12th Earl and later 1st Duke of
Ormond), who actively promoted Huguenot
immigration. Drelincourt remained high
in the Duke’s esteem and was ‘the most
successful embodiment’ of Ormond’s ‘policy
of assimilating’
2
Huguenots into Irish society.
In 1691 he was appointed Dean and Rector of
Armagh as well as Rector of Clonfeacle: thus
he became one of the wealthier clergy of the
period, a happy position that enabled him to
marry Mary Morris, daughter of Peter Morris
(or Maurice), briefly Dean of Derry in 1690.
James Stuart’s account of the Drelincourt
monument includes the following description:
This elegant piece of sculpture was
executed by the famous M. Rysbrack, and
is a noble specimen of his talents. The
dean is represented as recumbent. His
attitude is graceful and dignified, and the
several parts of the figure harmoniously
combine in producing a pleasing unity
of effect. The drapery is simply disposed,
and so arranged as to excite in the
mind of the spectator the idea of a
The Church of Ireland (Anglican) Cathedral of St Patrick, Armagh (Photo: St Patrick’s Cathedral,
all other photos: James Stevens Curl)
Funerary monuments at
St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh
James Stevens Curl