10 November: Launch of Churches in Early Medieval Ireland (Yale University Press)
At a reception on 10 November at 6pm in the Common
Room, University College Cork, Prof. Roger Stalley (TCD) will launch Churches
in Early Medieval Ireland: Architecture, Ritual and Memory (Yale University
Press) by Tomás Ó Carragáin. Before the reception, at 5pm in Kane G2, Prof. Stalley
will lecture on ‘Reconstructions of the Gothic Past: The Building of Cashel
Cathedral.’ This is the first book devoted to churches in Ireland
from the arrival of Christianity in the fifth century to the early stages of
the Romanesque around 1100, including those built to house treasures of the
golden age of Irish art such as the Book of Kells and the Ardagh chalice. Tomás
Ó Carragáin’s comprehensive survey of the surviving examples forms the basis
for a far-reaching analysis of why these buildings looked as they did, and what
they meant in the context of early Irish society. The book also includes the most detailed analysis to
date of the layout of the most important Irish ecclesiastical complexes,
including Armagh, Clonmacnoise and Glendalough. Ó Carragáin argues that some of
these monumental schemes were intended to recall distant sacred topographies,
especially Jerusalem and Rome. He also identifies a clear political and
ideological context for the first Romanesque churches in Ireland and shows that,
to a considerable extent, the Irish Romanesque represents the perpetuation of a
long-established architectural tradition.
