A New Church
Towards the end of the 19th century the 1840 Mercy Convent with its frontage to the landscaped banks of the Grand Canal, was the most prominent symbol of the increasing importance of the Catholic Church in the spiritual life of the people of Tullamore. In contrast, the almost one hundred year old St Mary’s Parish Church, which had a capacity for 500 worshippers at most, was of a modest character. Located on a backland site behind Harbour Street on lands gifted by Lord Charleville it shared its cramped accommodation with the Parochial House.
As Michael Byrne records in his comprehensive historical survey of Tullamore Catholic Parish, the question of repairing the old church arose in 1897 but on the advice of the influential businessman and local politician Henry Egan, it was felt that building an entirely new church would be a better option.
No time was lost and on the 16th January 1898 a preliminary meeting of a Parish Council to plan for the new Church was assembled and six days later appointed the Cavan based architect William Hague whose brief was to provide a 1,600 seat structure with additional space for 500 more on special occasions.
Finding a Site
It may seem surprising that Hague was asked to provide plans for a project whose site had not yet been agreed upon but as his commission was for a Gothic design of a certain capacity and regardless of its detailed architectural treatment, this would inevitably generate a rectangular footprint c. 50 metres by 20 metres which could be accommodated on any site of a slightly larger dimension.
The options considered by the building Committee chaired by the Parish Priest, Fr. Hugh Behan and coloured red on the map included:
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- The Shambles between Church Street and Market Square. This was a symbolic choice being on or close to the site of the first church in Tullamore built by the mother of Sir John Moore in 1726. It was swiftly ruled out as being much too constrained for the ambitious building intended.
- The Convent field near Henry Street (now the site of the Sacred Heart School and the Community College) which could easily accommodate the new church but was possibly a bit remote from the centre of the town.
- The garden of the Parochial House in Store Street. This was large enough to accommodate the proposed building and The Grand Canal Company agreed to relinquish the Harbourmasters House on the corner to enlarge it further, thus giving frontage on three sides . This option would have the dual advantage of allowing services to continue in the existing church during the building process and its conversion to community uses on completion.
An ideal site would have been the Military Barracks with its frontage to Patrick Street and Kilbride Street, but this would not become available for a further twenty years.
OPTIONAL SITES
Hague’s final design greatly resembled his St Eunan’s Cathedral in Letterkenny then under construction and boasted an elegant spire similar to that he had delivered for St Macartan’s Cathedral in Monaghan in 1892
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A New Architect
However, while the site selection process was ongoing, both William Hague and Fr. Behan died. The committee, now chaired by the energetic Fr. Philip Callary, appointed Hague’s apprentice Thomas Francis McNamara (1867-1947) to replace him and to proceed with the project.
In a rather brave gesture, the newly appointed and relatively young architect rejected the preference of Fr. Callary for the Parochial garden and declared that the optimum site was that of the old church; despite the difficulties that would be caused in attempting to continue parish activities during the construction period.
McNamara’s recommendation was accepted by the Committee, whether reluctantly or not we will never know. The foundation stone was laid in June 1898 and the new church dedicated by the Bishop of Meath Dr. Gaughran to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin into Heaven, in October 1906.
To provide some additional space, the Store Street frontage buildings had been acquired and the property intervening between the rear of the Benburb Street houses incorporated. The Parochial House used partly for the curates and the Christian Brothers was occupied by the parish priest and curates from 1893 and an additional property brought in on the western side of the entrance from Harbour Street.
Yet despite these enlargements, the site still did not enjoy full frontage to a main street and was surrounded by modest residential and commercial structures. The consequence of fitting such a magnificent building onto a site which did not fully display its qualities was to become unfinished civic business for the next eighty years and indeed is still with us today.
Though it had been recorded as being ‘in serious disrepair’ it does not appear that the old church was in imminent danger of collapse. The reason for pursuing the project with such precipitate haste is unknown and inexplicable. Ideally for such a prominent, prestigious and expensive (the final cost was £28,000, more than £ 9,000 over the contract price and £13,000 above the original estimate) public building, an appropriate site would have been acquired or assembled, following which a competition to select the best architectural response completed and finally a bill of quantities drawn up before there was a spade in the ground. This approach was advocated by the distiller Captain Bernard Daly who resigned from the Committee when it wasn’t accepted.
But regardless of the compromised site, McNamara delivered one of the finest examples of Irish ecclesiastical architecture of the period and he was to go on to design many important buildings in Tullamore including Scally’s Drapery, Egans Bridge House and the Grand Central Cinema.
One can only marvel at the energy and speed at which the original building project was conceived and delivered though, following the fire which was to destroy Hague/McNamara’s church almost entirely in October 1983, its replacement by a new building in August 1986 was an even more impressive achievement.
Unfinished Civic Business
This problem of creating a worthy site for the Church, which was now the defining landmark building in Tullamore surfaced in the 1950 Plan prepared by the visionary urbanist Frank Gibney who included the startling objective of requiring ’the ultimate clearance of all surrounding buildings within the street block in which the Church of the Assumption is located, is recommended. This refers to Harbour Street, Chapel Street, Store Street and Benburb Street.’
Making the local Catholic church a central focus of a provincial town and clearing out older (and often historic) buildings to create an impressive setting, was a device used by Gibney in his plans for Waterford, Drogheda, Ennis, Cavan, Westport and Newmarket on Fergus. His plan for Killarney is based entirely on enhancing the setting of Pugin’s wonderful Cathedral. Needless to say, none were ever implemented.
An examination of the local newspapers of the period does not reveal any political or even clerical support for the achievement of this objective in Tullamore either. It is unlikely that this dramatic proposal, which would have resulted in the loss of some of the most attractive houses in the town, would have helped the credibility or acceptability of Gibney’s overall Plan. In any event due to the dire economic circumstances of the period, none of its objectives apart from the local authority housing schemes of Marian Place and Pearse Park whose delivery was the raison d’etre of the Plan, were delivered.
Changing Times
In 1963 a new Planning Act was enacted whose central feature was the local Development Plan which promoted a solid evidence based approach and the identification and delivery of realistic projects – mainly in the area of sewage, drainage and roads infrastructure. The 1967 Tullamore Town Development Plan prepared by Planning Engineer J.J. Power was a conservative and realistic response to this new approach. Its sensible objectives were delivered within a reasonable time scale and set in place the groundwork for the future economic success of the town.
Surprisingly, Gibney’s attempt to undo the errors of McNamara’s unwise site selection resurfaced once again in precisely the same wording as used in 1950 and was included in the section which dealt with the clearance and renewal of areas of the town in an undeniable state of decay-which the church site plainly wasn’t.
This ambitious objective made no recognition of the fact that its achievement would require the acquisition and demolition of twenty-four houses (five of which today are Protected Structures), five shops and two pubs with flats over, together with St Mary’s Hall, all of which were in perfectly good condition. The reason for its inclusion derives from the particular social circumstances of the era in which both plans were conceived and promoted.
The period from 1950 to 1970 was the high water mark of devotional practices in Ireland when at least 90% of the population attended Mass on Sunday. Thus, it was a time of extensive and even grandiose church building, the notable provincial examples being the Cathedrals of Mullingar (1936), Athlone (1940) and Cavan (1942) while the vast edifice of Galway Cathedral was to open in 1965.
Tullamore had a fine church to rival these but its site did not do it justice and it is possible that Gibney’s idea was refloated by Tullamore Urban District Council simply to see how much local support and enthusiasm for such a project actually existed. This procedure might have been cold comfort for the owners of the many good quality properties who more than likely could not protest at the uncertainty visited on them by such a worthy public project.
In any event there would not appear to have been any support for the acquisition of the properties on the part of the U.D.C. or more importantly of the clerical authorities and the dramatic civic design objective did not reappear in the 1979 Development Plan.
The Fire and the Future
The disastrous fire of 1986 destroyed the main body of the church but spared the spire and the west front. Though the tracery of the magnificent rose window was lost, the remainder of the decorated facade survived, including the elegant flying buttresses and the graceful dual pillars surmounted by their distinctive pinnacles which were integral to its classical Neo-Gothic design.
The debate as to the future needs of the parish commenced immediately and the issue of building two smaller churches rather than one large one was raised. The provision of a second church to be located somewhere between the Spollanstown and Clonminch Roads had first been proposed by Gibney in his 1950 Plan and had been reiterated in the 1967 Town Plan, but with the site moved to Lloyds Field.
Nonetheless, within three weeks of the fire, it had been agreed that a replacement church of an even greater capacity than its predecessor would be built on the existing site. Despite receiving representations from architects all over Ireland seeking the commission, the Parish Priest Fr. P. Fallon felt that an architect with liturgical expertise was essential and turned to Edward N. Smith and Partners who had carried out refurbishment works on the church in 1977. A design for a substantial new building in a cruciform shape swiftly emerged. This incorporated transepts which would create a more imposing entrance on the Harbour Street frontage thereby addressing one of the problems inherent in the original layout
The new church opened in August 1986 and its free and open interior facilitated by laminated timber trusses was instantly declared an outstanding success. The treatment of the west front was not quite as well received however. While the rose window had been restored, the ceremonial main door, the impressive backdrop for so many local weddings, funerals and major religious events, was crudely blocked up and the twin spires which had contributed so much to the skyline of the town, abruptly chopped off.
It must be acknowledged that from the original backland location of 1802, to the error of trying to accommodate a magnificent building on the same cramped site in 1906 and eventually to the probably over ambitious design of 1986, the deliverance of a central building for important religious ceremonies in Tullamore has not been entirely successful.
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