Caheragh
Murphy Devitt in Cork, Part 1
A couple of years ago I visited the Catholic church in Caheragh, just north of Skibbereen, specifically to look for an image of Thaddeus McCarthy about whom I was researching at the time (see my post Thaddeus McCarthy, the Bishop Who Never Was). As I stepped into the church it was immediately obvious that the stained glass was not the usual traditional images based on renaissance paintings that I had been seeing in most of the churches I had been in. No, what greeted me (above is the Thaddeus window) was something entirely new and different – modernist, colourful, idiosyncratic, painterly, beautifully designed and expertly executed windows, each one identified as the work of Murphy Devitt of Dublin and installed in 1963. I fell in love.
The stained glass windows in the rest of this post (except for one) are all from the Church of Our Lady Crowned, in Mayfield, Cork. This one represents the Risen Christ
There are Murphy Devitt windows in ten Cork churches, and why not? Johnny Murphy, after all, was a Cork boy, brought up in the city and starting his art education at the Crawford School of Art in the 1940s when the life-drawing classes still revolved around the Canova casts. He was a standout student, winning a scholarship to the National College of Art in Dublin. There he met a fellow student, the beautiful Róisín Dowd, whose parents had fled the Belfast blitz to settle in Dublin. Together and separately, they travelled to Paris and Rome, doing what art students do – visiting galleries and studios, studying centuries of European painting, absorbing and responding to those influences (think Botticelli for Róisín, Klimt for Johnny), finding their artistic voices and refining their own styles.
The Presentation in the Temple (detail)
Returning home, they had to wait for several years to marry. Their daughter Réiltín suspects that Grandfather Dowd insisted on Johnny having gainful employment and that may have been why he joined the Harry Clarke Studios in 1952 and began to seriously study the craft of glass painting. Harry Clarke died in 1931 but his studios carried on making stained glass until the 1970s. There was plenty of work for anyone in the ecclesiastical provisioning business as new churches were going up all over the country to serve the burgeoning, and pious, population.
Dessie Devitt, Paddy McLoughlin, Mickey Watson and Johnny Murphy in their busy studio in the 60s
One of the glaziers Johnny worked with at the Harry Clarke Studios was John Devitt, universally known as Des or Dessie. Becoming fast and lifelong friends, they decided to strike out on their own, taking some of the men from the HC Studios with them. It was the late 50s and they couldn't have picked a better time. Working from a mews in Monkstown and later a custom-built studio in Blackrock, they started to tender successfully for new commissions. This also allowed Johnny and Róisín, who now joined them as well when she could escape motherly duties, to develop their own unique approach to designing and painting stained glass, very different from what had become a somewhat hidebound atmosphere at the Harry Clarke Studios. For an example of what I mean by that, and to illustrate the contrast with MD, take a look at my post Time Warp, featuring a set of Harry Clarke Studio windows from the late 1950s. Below is a detail from one of them – far, indeed from the genius of Harry Clarke himself.
Detail from a Harry Clarke Studio window in Drimoleague. Although this window is interesting for lots of other reasons, the quality of the glasswork and the artistry of the painting had declined over the decades since Harry's death.
What Johnny always called their 'first big break' came with the Church of Our Lady Crowned, in Mayfield, Cork, completed in 1962. According to The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage:
Our Lady Crowned Roman Catholic Church was built to the design of J.R. Boyd Barrett's firm and when completed in 1962 comprised the final of five new churches constructed to the north side of Cork city and named after the five Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary. The design and construction of the roof is of technical importance while the extensive stained glass windows, from the workshops of Murphy & Devitt in Dublin, are of particular artistic merit.
Too often, stained glass windows are one-off commemorative objects, mounted in an available opening. But when you see a whole scheme of windows in one church, designed to fit and complement the architecture throughout the building, the effect can be breathtaking. And so it is with Our Lady Crowned. The church is wedged-shaped, with enormous glass panels occupying at least half the space. Scenes from the Life of Christ range around the walls, from the Annunciation to the Crucifixion and Epiphany, with the huge area over the main door taken up with a choir of angels heralding the crowning of Mary on one side and Christ on the other.
The day we visited the church was full of children preparing for their Confirmation
When I told Réiltín Murphy*, Johnny and Róisín's daughter, that Our Lady Crowned was my favourite of the Cork MD churches, she responded that it was her parents' favourite too. It's not hard to see why – it's a triumph of imagination, artistic vision, craftsmanship and above all collaboration. As I get more familiar with MD windows the distinction between a Johnny Murphy window and a Róisín Dowd Murphy window is sometimes quite clear: Johnny's style is more angular, with loose dark brushstrokes, strongly marked facial features, heads tilted at an angle, while Róisín's figures are more curvy and flowing, with greater attention to fabric and to musical instruments. Réiltín characterises the difference thus: Róisín's figures, I always think, are too busy to pose for their photo while Johnny's are usually quietly aware of just who they are and what they symbolise.
Nativity, Presentation and Jesus in the Temple windows
In Mayfield, all those elements are present: at first glance it's impossible to tell where Johnny leaves off and Róisín begins. But we do have evidence, in the form of an original cartoon, that links Róisín directly to the Assumption window and once you see that, you see her hand in other places too – the heavenly choir, for example, has many of her hallmarks.
Róisín's cartoon for the second angel from the bottom on the right, and the finished window
I am tempted to see Johnny in the passion images – the sombre figure of the suffering Jesus (below) exudes a quiet power alongside the mocking soldiers.
But many of the windows defy easy analysis. Look at the Nativity window (below), for example, and see if you can figure out whose hand is where. Complicating all this in Murphy Devitt windows is that when times got busy they took in extra artists to help with the workload.
In this window note how the 'break-outs' (the areas of coloured glass) are used to separate two long panels, which are then unified at the top. The composition, which manages to include all the major figures in two tall narrow panels, is impressive, as is the integration of those panels with the break-outs.
As with most of their commissions, Johnny was the one who sketched out the overall design and decided on the ratio of figurative panels to 'break ups', those areas of coloured glass that allow the eye to rest between scenes, to register the passage of time between events. Non-figurative schemes became important elements in the Murphy Devitt style – more about them later, but for the moment note the highly original way in which the expanse of coloured glass are treated. Nobody else was doing anything like this at the time – it was a unique and beautiful Murphy Devitt innovation.
In this window, the Finding of Jesus in the Temple, the separating device is the break-out panel and the unifying device is the floor
Not for Murphy Devitt the regular quarry glass with its dependable lozenge shapes, or static grids of straight lines. Johnny loved the wobbly, the wavy and and the irregular. Réiltín says, He was interested in music: the fugue, he said, whereby the same melody/image is played in different keys – his abstracts are often flipped, turned, twisted to be similar but not identical. He loved glass as a painting medium. He loved its kinetic effect in its flaws, its trees moving outside, its changing light/colours from passing clouds, its seeming to be alive.
A window where the break-outs serve as background, with the two main figures occupying panels and the cross stretching across the space
It's a lot easier to cut regular shapes and fit them together, of course, but you don't need an expert for that. This is where Dessie Devitt came into his own as a master glazier. Choosing the glass to match the colour scheme, assembling it all harmoniously, cutting and leading the thousands of pieces that went into a scheme like this – none of it would have been possible without Dessie Devitt and the men who worked alongside him.
The heavenly choir, above one side of the main door, with Our Lady Crowned on the right. Below is a detail from the other side
By all accounts it was a charmed workplace, a happy environment where everyone worked hard but where laughter and The Chat abounded. Des in particular was gifted with the ability to recognise the absurd and could hardly leave the studio without coming back with an entertaining story.
About the same time as Mayfield, Murphy Devitt won the commission to design a set of windows based on the Canticle of St Francis for another Cork church, this one attached to a Cappuchin Friary. We'll take a look at that one and some others next week. For the moment, the Mayfield church will serve as an introduction to Johnny, Róisín and Des, their modern aesthetic and their collaborative approach.
*Many thank to Réiltín Murphy for much of the background information, for answering all my questions and for additional photographs, including the people pictures and Róisín's cartoon.
Posted in Cork, Irish Art, Irish Craft, Irish Stained Glass, West Cork Blog	Tagged Caheragh, Church of Our Lady Crowned, Des Devitt, Harry Clarke Studios, Johnny Murphy, Mayfield, Murphy Devitt Studios, Réiltín Murphy, Róisín Dowd Murphy
Excuse me – forest what? Don't worry, it doesn't involve any actual bathing (the clothes stay on) – perhaps immersion is a more apt word.
The whole idea is Japanese and comes from the concept of shinrin-yoku, which translates literally as 'forest bathing' but really conveys the idea of immersing yourself in a woodland environment for a while and reconnecting with that part of you that needs this experience.
And we do need it – it's buried in our genes and our psyche that we are creatures who used to live close to nature and who feel good when we are back in that place. Forest bathing has been developed as a kind of therapeutic return to the natural world as well as an escape, for a while at least, from the civilised one.
Future forest – tree planting is ongoing at Caherbeg farm, native species only
The event itself was part of the Taste of West Cork Food Festival and it took place on Caherbeg Free Range Pork Farm, home of Avril Allshire-Howe and her family. I've written about Avril before, in my post on black pudding way back in 2015. A leader in the thriving West Cork food scene and a very busy woman, Avril discovered that her way of relaxing and centering was to take a walk down into the woods on the Allshire farm, and so the idea of introducing other people to the healing power of time with the trees was born.
As we walked, Avril explained she and William's philosophy of farming and how they hoped to plant more trees over time. They are pioneers in the new discipline of agri-forestry – a true mixture of trees and agriculture, where the trees are planted far enough apart to allow for agricultural activities (such as hay-making) to take place among and between them.
Here is an example of agri-forestry, with trees widely-spaced. We were fascinated by the grass growing up the tree-tube along with the tree
One of the trees they have found thrives in our ever-damp West Cork environment is the water-thirsty eucalyptus. So our first stop (after saying hello to the piggies) was through the eucalyptus grove.
The aroma all around us was incredible and here we stopped and breathed deeply, rubbing the leaves and the bark with our hands and taking in the sinus-clearing benefits.
Then down beside a rippling brook – the air became still and the noises of the farm and pork plant disappeared. We came to a conifer plantation that was put in before the Allshires bought the land. It had not been properly managed so it is not commercially viable but it's perfect for a dark forest immersion experience. Very little light penetrates the canopy and the air is perfectly still, almost spookily so. We wandered the path through it, saying very little and concentrating on the suddenly-cool air, the feel and texture of the tall straight trunks and the soft, sterile ground underfoot.
Where light could pierce the darkness ferns took hold and along the pathways as we emerged we found wildflowers taking advantage of every beam to put down their tenacious little roots. Although the Foxglove was finished we could still see their basal rosettes getting ready for next year, and along the little watercourses running through the trees Water-mint took hold wherever it could – more leaves to crush and savour.
Of course, no country walk in Ireland is complete without the obligatory ruin – this one a highly satisfactory house that must have been quite fine in its day.
And then, what was this? At the bottom of a field was a table, laden with West Cork goodies, and Avril invited us to browse and make a sandwich using her own home-made challah bread. A picnic has never tasted so good!
I have my eucalyptus and mint leaves by me as I write this – aroma is a sure-fire memory stimulant and I am back in my head walking through the trees, time slowed down, breathing and listening, with the rough bark under my hands.
Posted in Forests, Irish Landscape, Nature, West Cork, West Cork Blog	Tagged A Taste of West Cork, Avril Allshire, Caheragh, Caherbeg Free Range Pork
Way back in 2013 I wrote about our chance discovery of the Captain Francis O'Neill Memorial – out in the deep countryside west of Bantry Bay. Just to remind you, O'Neill – always referred to locally as The Chief – was a West Cork hero who championed Irish traditional music, and many students of The Music have a copy of '1001 Gems: The Dance Music of Ireland' – O'Neill's best known collection of tunes, published in 1907. I acquired my copy over thirty years ago and so far I have learned only a fraction!
Birthplace and Homestead of Francis O'Neill, Tralibane
Ireland has a great tradition of honouring its heroes, and 'The Captain Francis O'Neill Memorial Company' was set up in 1995 to do just that for The Chief. It was timely, as the 150th anniversary of his death came in the summer of 1998, and the Company was responsible for erecting a plaque at Tralibane Bridge – the place of his birth – and on that day also reviving the 'pattern dancing' at the crossroads by the bridge, after an absence of very many years.
Dancing at the Crossroads, Tralibane Bridge
I'd better briefly recap on the man himself… He was born on August 28, 1848 at Tralibane in the Parish of Caheragh – the youngest of seven children. His parents had a very strong background in Irish music, and Francis grew up in a household which was a gathering place for musicians sharing and exchanging tunes, and accompanying the dances. Like so many of his peers he left home at the age of 16, embarking in Cork city on a sailing vessel bound for England and from there found work on other ships which took him around the world. Among his many adventures was a shipwreck while aboard the Minnehaha in the South Pacific. He was rescued by a passing ship which eventually docked in San Francisco, where he decided for the time being to stay on dry land. His journeyings took him on to Chicago, where he joined the Police Force in 1873. At that time 40,000 residents of the city were Irish: by 1900 there were over a quarter of a million there: a huge reservoir of Irish music for Francis to garner – something he revelled in. During his first months of service he was shot and seriously wounded in the course of duty. One of the bullets lodged in his spine and could not be removed: he carried it with him for the rest of his long life.
Francis was good at his job: he was promoted to Lieutenant, Captain and, finally, to Chief of the Chicago Police in 1901. He had 3,300 men under his command – the vast majority of them were Irish, and one suspects that many of them were employed by The Chief because of their musical abilities and resources! All through his adult life Francis O'Neill collected and wrote down tunes; he was also an early champion of the phonograph, which helped him in his transcriptions.
Timmy McCarthy as The Chief
We went out to Tralibane today and – sure enough – enjoyed music and dancing at the crossroads, but we were also entertained by The Chief himself, resurrected by Timmy McCarthy – a descendant and a fund of information. I am indebted to him for the above and for many tales and anecdotes which I don't have room to include here. He was dressed the part: a Police Chief's uniform complete with polished badge – and he wielded a truncheon! He walked us from the Bridge (where we had been treated to outdoor music and dancing) to the house where Francis had been born, and then on to the site of the O'Neill Memorial. There was food, drink, tales and more music and dancing. It's the middle of November, and the sun beamed down on us, lighting up the mountains in the distant view. You must tire of me telling you how beautiful it is here in rural Ireland, but we can never get enough of this wonderful landscape.
The Parish of Caheragh
Group photo at Tralibane Bridge
Playing at the Crossroads
Timmy leading the walk
O'Neill's tune collections have been published under different titles in his lifetime and ever since. They are considered the most valuable source material for all students. Some say that The Chief 'saved' Irish music, but I am inclined to think that it would have survived regardless. It is certainly very much alive today, as our weekly sessions demonstrate – along with the very many festivals which we are fortunate enough to have right on our door step.
Francis and his wife Ann had ten children, but sadly five died young. After an active retirement which was filled with fishing, pottery and photography as well as The Music, the Chief died of heart failure at his Chicago home: he was 87.
Plaques at the Memorial Site
Statue of The Chief at the Memorial Site
Francis O'Neill has left a legacy which is commemorated at Tralibane. There is a life-sized statue of him looking out over his own family countryside: he plays his flute throughout eternity. The large Memorial site often hosts meetings, music and dancing. We will return again next year…
Posted in Roaringwater Bay, Traditional Music, Tralibane, West Cork, West Cork Blog	Tagged 1001 Gems, Caheragh, Captain Francis O'Neill, Chicago Chief of Police, Collecting Irish Music, Dancing at the Crossroads, O'Neill, O'Neill Memorial, O'Neill's Irish Music, Pattern Dancing, The Captain Francis O'Neill Memorial Company, The Chief, Timmy McCarthy, Tralibane, Tralibane Memorial