13 Chapter Fourteen: Honan Chapel
HONAN CHAPEL at University College Cork
“Ostensibly the Honan Chapel was built and furnished in a Celtic Revival style showing the spirit and work of the age when Irishmen built churches and nobly adorned them under an impulse of native genius. It was desired to put before the eyes of the Catholic students of Munster a church designed and fashioned . . . as those which their forefathers had built for their priests and missioners all over Ireland nearly a thousand years ago.
The Honan Chapel was designed and built at a time some Irishmen were fighting for national freedom at home and others were fighting ‘in defence of right, of freedom and of religion’ on the fields of Europe. It was a time too when articulate and principled men like John O’Connell argued for freedom for the poor from the evils of slum management and when thinkers, writers and activists—as with their equals elsewhere—sought to develop a unique cultural language which would express a new nation.” – The Honan Chapel: A Golden Vision. Ed. Virginia Teehan and Elizabeth Wincott Heckett.
- Architectural Style: Hiberno- or Irish-Romanesque; Celtic Revivalist
- Church: Nave (the body of the church/Christ’s body); Transepts (Christ’s arms on the cross); Chancel (the head of Christ).
Floor Mosaics:
- Threshold: a sunburst and stars surrounded by signs of the zodiac and flanked by zoomorphic interlace.
- Central Aisle: a river [of life] filled with fish flowing from the beast-head.
- East End of Nave: a fantastical sea-creature flanked by a number of animals drinking from the river, and trees, filled with birds, growing from its waters. Animals include polar bear, peacock, lion, stag, pelican, squirrel, sea-creature.
- Before the Altar: the world surrounded by symbols of creation: the plants and animals of the earth, the planets of the heavens, and all the forces of nature.
Floor Inscriptions:
- Threshold: BENEDICTUS ES DOMINE IN FIRMAMENTO COELI / ET LAUDABILIS ET GLORIOSUS ET SUPEREXALTATUS IN SAECULA (Blessed is the Lord of the firmament of heaven / and above all to be praised and glorified for ever (Daniel 3:56))
- By River Mouth: LAUDATE DOMINUM DE TERRA / DRACONES ET OMNES ABYSSI (Praise the Lord from the earth / ye dragons and all ye depths (Psalms 148:7))
- East End of Nave: BENEDICITEMARIA ET FLUMINA DOMINO (Bless the Lord of all ye seas and rivers (Daniel 3:78))
- BEN[EDICI]TE CETE ET OMNIA QUAE MOVENTUR IN AQUIS D[OMI]NO (Bless the Lord ye whales and all that moves in the waters (Daniel 3:79))
- At Chancel Steps: BENEDICITE OMNES / VOLUCRES COELI DOMINO (Bless the Lord all ye fowls of the air (Daniel 3:80))Flanking Sea –Creature: BENEDICITE OMNES BESTIAE / ET PECORA DOMINO (Bless the Lord all ye beasts and cattle (Daniel 3:81))
Windows
12. Windows by Harry Clarke: St. Brigid, St. Patrick, St. Columcille
13. Windows by Harry Clarke: Our Lady, St. Ita, St. Gobnet
14. Windows by Harry Clarke: St. FinnBarr, St. Albert, St. Declan
15. Other windows: Our Lord, St. John, St. Joseph
16. St. Colman, St. Brendan, St. Fiannan
