Saturday 25 June 2011

The ones that got away - Borris

The Parish Church of the Sacred Heart, Borris, Co. Carlow, forces me to address the perametres of this series. What do I mean by the ones that got away? Borris - and a number of other Churches in the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin - retain some of the elements of a traditional Sanctuary but not all. It retains two fine Side Altars, a complete span of Altar Rails with Sanctuary gates (fairly rare and probably what the late Bishop Ryan meant by only 10% of the Churches in the Diocese remain to be 'reordered'), and the body of the High Altar with reredos (only gradines in fact). However, it has lost the mensa of the Altar, the Altar strictly speaking, or at least that Altar has been brought forward to facilitate the celebration of Mass versus populum, while preventing the celebration of Mass versus Deum - perhaps unintended in this case due to the shallowness of the Sanctuary but frequently all too obvious a factor, by the creation of the 'cliff' that I consider to be a characteristic liturgical symbol of the Diocese. Yet, I include it in the ones that got away because it is still usable for the Usus Antiquior, and partly because of the number of original features that have been retained, and partly because it still looks like a Church, inside and out. Judge for yourself.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Strange or a (neo)gothic church to be so dark isnt it?

Ransome said...

What is really strange is the size of the side altars that are crushed into the side walls when there appear to be fine transcepts available. Presuming that the transcepts are a later addition why couldn't the sanctuary be designed to allow for this?

Little Al said...

I get the sense of this being a very plain church with many decorative features. Maybe that is why it is so dark for a gothic style church. The building itself is not really gothic just the features.

Bagenal Harvey bis said...

The site for the Church in Borris was donated by the Kavanaghs of 'the big house'. The family had converted to the Established Church only in that generation due to bigoted marriage considerations. The removal of the statues from the chapel of Borris House in line with their new-found anglican values led to the so-called peasants curse that was reputedly responsible for the birth of the next born son, Arthur Kavanagh, without legs.