05.12.2019
New History of Remarkable and Unique Dublin Church Launched
Parishioners and friends of St Bartholomew’s Church on Clyde Road gathered to rejoice last night (Wednesday December 4) at the publication of a new book about the unique Dublin church. ‘Saint Bartholomew’s Church Dublin 1867 to 2019’ by Kenneth Milne and Alistair Rowan was launched in the Irish Architectural Archive on Merrion Square by Archbishop Michael Jackson.
This is the second edition of the book. Dr Milne wrote the first edition in 1963 and in the intervening decades there have been great developments in the area of historical scholarship. In updating the book a wealth of new source material was uncovered that had not previously been available resulting in the original text being amended and added to in areas.
In addition, architectural historian and parishioner, Prof Alistair Rowan, has written about the church’s architecture and stunning art to enable worshipers and those visiting St Bartholomew’s to read and understand the design and decoration of the building. The result is a beautifully presented volume published by Ross Hinds.
The master of ceremonies for the evening was longstanding St Bartholomew’s parishioner and member of the editorial committee, David Jones, who noted that the church occupied a very special place within the Church of Ireland. The church has been undergoing an extensive restoration project over the last five years, and he said that it seemed appropriate to ask Dr Milne to add to his book. He thanked both authors for their dedication and hard work in bringing the new publication to fruition and paid tribute to the publisher for his support. “This book will live beyond us all… We have laboured for three years and we are so blessed as a community to have people who will support us,” he added.
Launching the book, Archbishop Jackson said it sought to offer an authoritative guide to reading St Bartholomew’s with attention to personalities and structures. “St Bartholomew’s is among an unique cluster of church buildings in Ireland that puts liturgy at the heart of parochial life unashamedly. Because of this opportunity and this privilege, it is important that those who worship in such a church be enabled to read the architecture and the decoration as more than incidental or diverting but, rather, as perspectives of grace, voices of light and darkness, intrinsic to the movement of faith and the public articulation of the work and the word of God,” he said.
The Archbishop said that the church combined magnificence with modesty – the magnificence of its design and art with the modesty of its description in the book as ‘a parish church in the countryside rather than a building of metropolitan assertions’.
He also spoke of the courage and commitment of those who have served and cared for the church and who regularly broke new ground. “St Bartholomew’s deserves our admiration and respect for testing the waters in regard to aspects of an international Anglicanism which, in their day, were alien to the Church of Ireland and with which many to this very day remain uneasy. However we happen to ‘do’ liturgy, it is the laudable service offered back to God by the people of God in all our inadequacy and in all our hopefulness but with integrity of intention and with transparency of purpose. This volume shows that in St Bart’s things were not done with contrived confrontation but within the combined work of Word, Sacrament and Mission. This surely was, is and will be the regular work of the Church of Ireland and of the Anglican Communion,” he said.
Author Kenneth Milne paid tribute to everyone who contributed to making the book possible. He said the original book had been largely rewritten thanks to the amount of new information that had become available. Having grown up in the parish, Dr Milne regaled the large crowd with stories of an area he described as “an exceptionally interesting environment in which to live in the ‘40s and ‘50s. If Dublin had a bohemian district, this was it, although my family was far from bohemian,” he explained.
Highlighting some of the more famous denizens of the roads around St Bartholomew’s he said it was a remarkable microcosm of Irish life and painted a colourful picture of what it was like to live and grow up in the area which is now largely taken over by offices.
Prof Rowan said that as an architectural historian he was keen to show that stones could speak. “I’ve done this so that our own parishioners and readers of the book can look at the building and understand it,” he said. Describing St Bartholomew’s as a remarkable church built in the high Victorian period, he explained about the different volumes to be found within the structure from the long hall with the high pitched roof to the smaller domestic volumes to the sides and then into the choir and sanctuary. He added that the remarkable decoration moved in a specific way becoming more enriched and intense approaching the choir and the sanctuary.
He also paid tribute to the fabric committee of the church for the restoration work of the last five years which would ensure that the remarkable church would continue into the 22nd century.
You can read the full text of Archbishop Jackson’s address here.
There are some copies of the book available to buy at €30. Email admin@stbartholomews.ie for information.
