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Glendalough, St Saviour

Location
(53°0′37″N, 6°19′39″W)
Glendalough, St Saviour
T 123 968
pre-1974 traditional (Republic of Ireland) Wicklow
now Wicklow
medieval St Saviour
  • Roger Stalley

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Description

The priory is situated about three quarters of a mile to the E of the main monastic buildings at Glendalough, on the S bank of the Glendasan river. At the moment the ruins are completely surrounded by timber plantations. The buildings consist of a nave and chancel church with an annex to the N of the nave. The latter is the same size as the nave and linked to it by a doorway near the E end of the dividing wall. The masonry coursing in the W wall of the priory indicates that nave and annex are coeval. A mural stair in the E wall of the annex led presumably to an upper floor and probably also to a croft over the barrel vaulted chancel. When the Commissioners of Public Works took over the site in 1875 the buildings 'were buried under heaps of rubbish and tangled vegetation'; extensive reconstruction took place at this time. The bulk of the Romanesque carving is to be found on the chancel arch and the E window, both of which were rebuilt in the 1870s.

History

The history of St Saviour's Priory remains very unclear. According to the Official Guide, it is said to have been founded by St Laurence O'Toole in 1162, but the author(s) provide no supporting evidence. The Vita of St Laurence states that while he was abbot of Glendalough (1154–62), the saint showed a great zeal for church building, and on this basis Francoise Henry attributed the foundation of the priory to him. The style of the carving lends support to this idea, the analogies with Baltinglass (founded 1148), suggesting a date in the 1150s for the sculpture. The only caveat is the keystone of the first order of the chancel arch, which has a filleted roll, a feature which is not to be expected in Ireland as early as the 1150s (but see also Killeshin for an early use of fillets). The fact that St Saviour's followed the Arrouasian Rule strengthens the connection with Laurence O'Toole, who introduced this branch of the Augustinian canons to Holy Trinity Dublin, soon after he became Archbishop of Dublin in 1162.

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Windows

Interior Features

Arches

Chancel arch/Apse arches
Comments/Opinions

The carvings at St Saviour's can be related to many other churches in Leinster and beyond: for example, the thin bands of zigzag (on the N base of the first order of the chancel arch) can be compared with carving on the font at Wicklow, and the animals on the interior jambs of the E window recall work at Baltinglass. Shooting tendrils occur on the reused doorway at Wicklow, a feature which Francoise Henry compared both with grave slabs at Glendalough and with similar motifs on the Cross of Cong. This decorative element also recurs at Wicklow, where the capitals have the same squat proportions of some of those at St Saviour's. Other themes, such as the human heads on the capitals, are standard features of Leinster Romanesque. The roll on the E window, which terminates in a dragon's head, has more distant connections; something similar is found on the chancel arch of one of the churches at Inisfallen (Kerry).

The E window, with its two-light arrangement, is a unique form in Ireland. It is a type commonly associated with English castle building. The chevron around the window is notably complex and bizarre, made all the more confusing by the failure to use voussoirs of consistent dimensions. While the chevron in the chancel arch is a little more orthodox, the keystone of the inner order, with a filleted roll, is without parallel. The delicacy of the sculpture on the jambs of the E window is characteristic of the low relief carving often encountered in Irish Romanesque. The use of traditional motifs - running spirals, and knotwork, for example - is combined with themes commonplace in Romanesque Europe, such as lions with tails between the legs, the 'ravioli'-like motif, scalloped capitals etc. While some of the carving is executed with great precision, other aspects of the work are curiously arbitrary, not least the application of chevron ornament and the peculiar treatment of some of the bases.

Bibliography

G. L. Barrow, Glendalough and St Kevin, Dundalk, 1972.

Glendalough Co. Wicklow, Official Historical and Descriptive Guide, Dublin, n.d., 33–38.

F. Henry, Irish Art in the Romanesque Period 1020–1170 AD, London, 1970, 145, 152–3.

H. G. Leask, Irish Churches and Monastic Buildings, Dundalk, 1955, 96–100.