Seasonal Greetings From Thurles In Co Tipperary

A Christmas Card For You

At this season of Christmas, Thurles.Info would like to wish our growing readership, both at home and abroad, a very healthy, happy, prosperous and holy Christmas.

At this time each year the crib always reminds me of the actions of my now long deceased grandmother. Each year she would visit the local crib and having placed a six penny piece in the poor box, she would remove a piece of straw from the crib and place it in her purse, where it would remain until the following Christmas.   This action she assured me would guarantee that regardless of prevailing economic conditions, God would supply all her needs. Strangely, I must admit that despite living in lowly impoverished circumstances all of her life, for her it always appeared to work.

Cathedral of The Assumption – (In Irish-Ard Eaglais na Deastógála.)

Our brief slide show features the interior of the very beautiful Italianate Romanesque, Thurles Cathedral of The Assumption, latter which stands on a site with ecclesiastical associations going back to the beginning of the 14th century, when a Carmelite Priory was then first established in Thurles.

Around 1730 a humble thatched chapel (Thatched- a roof covered in dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, or rushes, so as to shed water away from the inner roof) was erected in the vicinity of this former priory, courtesy of the then ruling local Mathew family. For the next eighty years this simple structure alone would serve the needs of an impoverished Thurles Catholic peasant community.

During the years 1804 -1807, Archbishop Thomas Bray replaced this thatched chapel with a more impressive building costing over £10,000.00, and which became known locally as “The Big Chapel.”  This new building would serve as the mother church to the archdiocese of Cashel & Emly until Dr Patrick Leahy, Archbishop of the diocese made a decision to renovate and upgrade the building to almost a wholly new edifice.

This new building today known as the Cathedral of The Assumption is an imposing combination of local limestone, latter quarried at Leugh, Turtulla and the Green, Holycross here in Co Tipperary, with Cork and Galway marble, Aberdeen granite and Portland stone also incorporated. Pope Pius IX also donated some ancient marble to the building.  The magnificent tabernacle was designed by Giacomo Della Porta (1537-1603), latter a pupil of Michelangelo and was purchased from the Gesu church in Rome. A matching altar was erected to accommodate the tabernacle.  A statue of Archbishop Leahy was later appropriately erected in the Cathedral’s front yard area, in 1911.

Thurles Cathedral has many other notable features which immediately capture the attention and admiration of both regular worshipper and curious visiting tourist. The partially detached baptistery, built in the Byzantine style, resembles that of Pisa. The campanile (bell tower,) standing at 120 feet high and 25 feet square, can be observed  from all areas leading into Thurles, majestically guarding  the surrounding hinterland. The Rose Window, designed and erected by Messrs Mayer & Co, of Munich, remains the outstanding stained glass feature in this beautiful cathedral. Two ornate and matching side altars with statues of the Sacred Heart and Our Lady, the work of noted Italian neoclassical sculptor, Giovanni Maria Benzoni, are also much admired. In the sanctuary ceiling there is a beautiful painting of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven.

Eight tower bells, three Roman arched doorways, an organ dating back to 1826, holy water fonts; latter fonts saved from the aforementioned Big Chapel, together with numerous impressive outdoor statues are all noteworthy feature of this cherished building.