Diocesan News
New history of remarkable and unique Dublin church launched
Parishioners and friends of St Bartholomew’s Church on Clyde Road gathered to rejoice last 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.
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.
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,” he said.
Kenneth Milne thanked everyone who helped make the book possible. 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,” he commented. Highlighting some of the more famous denizens of the roads around St Bartholomew’s he said it was a remarkable microcosm of Irish life.
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 pointed out the different volumes to be found within the structure from the long hall with the high pitched roof to the smaller domestic volumes. He added that the remarkable decoration moved in a specific way becoming more enriched and intense approaching the choir and the sanctuary.
There are some copies of the book available to buy at €30. Email admin@stbartholomews.ie for information.
For further information please contact:
Diocesan Communications Officer, Dublin & Glendalough
087 235 6472
Mrs Lynn Glanville
dcodublin@gmail.com