Search Results for 'Roman Catholic Church'

“Catholic cathedrals in Ireland are monuments to our imitative instincts and conservative distrust of artistic originality. There are examples of new church architecture but in general, Church authorities remained faithful to the Middle Ages and refused to abandon medieval architecture. It is therefore understandable that in 1949 when the building of Galway Cathedral was commissioned, it should have been conceived in a hybrid Romanesque style. In 1959, the foundation stone was laid and on August 15, 1965, the Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St Nicholas was dedicated by Cardinal Cushing. In December that year the Vatican Council solemnly ended its revolutionary document The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy which rendered the shape, style, arrangement, and setting of such buildings obsolete and anachronistic. This building was almost an object lesson in insularity. It is clear from the late Bishop of Galway’s instructions that for him art can be no more than decoration, an illustration of scripture or a clearly formulated theology. Art is never an original source, a spiritual revelation, a doing of theology.”

Since coming to power the present Government has not been shy about going down the referendum route. To date it has sought to make six Constitutional amendments and next May will seek to make two more.

SINEAD O’CONNOR, one of Ireland’s most individual, eclectic, and controversial singer-songwriters, and John Grant, the American singer-songwriter, whose music The Guardian described as “completely compelling, profoundly discomforting but beautiful”, play the Galway International Arts Festival this summer.

AT A time when some Irish painters came to the west of Ireland and depicted a rural idyll, Bernard Canavan was, like many other people his age in the 1950s, boarding a boat to England.

The National Day of Commemoration, to honour Irish people who died in past wars or on service with the United Nations, will be marked in Galway this Sunday.

IT IS difficult for an increasing section of the Irish population to visualise the utter power wielded by the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland prior to the mid-sixties. The law of the State was dictated, not by the taoiseach and ministers in Dáil Éireann, but by the bishops and priests from the pulpit.

Balla No Name Club is hosting a gathering on Sunday, June 9, 2.30pm in the grounds of the Church of Ireland Holy Trinity Church in Balla.

THE GALWAY Film Society will screen two films over the coming week - one about a nervous new pope, the other about gender and identity in pre-teens.

NEXT WEEK at the Town Hall Theatre sees the west of Ireland premiere of John Patrick Shanley’s powerful play Doubt: a Parable.

ONE OF the most successful plays of recent years, John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt: A Parable is coming to the Town Hall Theatre for what is sure to be a highlight of the venue’s current season.