We use cookies to improve your experience, some are essential for the operation of this site.

St Patrick, Ballintober

Location
(53°45′13″N, 9°17′21″W)
Ballintober
M 15 79
pre-1974 traditional (Republic of Ireland) Mayo
now Mayo
  • Hazel Gardiner

Please use this link to cite this page - https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=14617.

Find out how to cite the CRSBI website here.

Description

A large cruciform, aisleless early 13thc. church standing next to the abbey ruins (W wall of nave to E wall of chancel 40.23m, w. across transepts 22.86 m). The rebuilt chapter house and sacristy survive and are also early 13thc. while the remains of the cloister and domestic buildings are mainly 15thc. The church has a vaulted chancel with a chamber above and two barrel-vaulted chapels in each transept, the inner round-headed and the outer pointed and rather taller. The sacristy adjoins the south transept and abuts onto a small chamber, accessible from the cloister walk. The chapter house is attached to the sacristy. A 17thc. chapel adjoins the chancel on the S. The nave was rebuilt in 1270. Plain round-headed doorways are found in the N wall of the N transept and N and S side of nave (all reconstructed in 1965-6). The plain sacristy doorway and the doorway to the storeroom in the E cloister range are original. This doorway is round-headed and of three plain chamfered orders, the first order with a tympanum and the others continuous. There are plain round-headed windows at clerestorey level (one on S two on N); one in the E wall of each transept chapel, with a small rectangular window above; and two, one above the other, over the triple window on the E face, the upper being rectangular. There are a number of narrow round-headed windows to the chapter house, some reconstructed. Romanesque sculpture is found on the corbels of the crossing, the chancel vaulting and E window, the W door of the chapter house, a reset corbel and a mortar (used as a font).

History

Ballintober Abbey was founded in 1216 by Cathal Crobdearg Ua Conchobair (O'Connor), King of Connaught, the natural son of King Toirrdelbach Ua Conchobhair (Turlough O'Connor) for whom the Cross of Cong was made. Knox suggests that Cathal may have founded the abbey in order to make amends for imprisoning the Bishop of Tuam, an deed recorded in the Annals of Loch Ce. This scandalous event also involved Cathal's brother Maelisa, who later became Prior of Inishmaine Abbey. Cathal also founded Abbeyknockmoy in Galway in 1189-90.

Ballintober is close by the site of a church said to be founded by St Patrick c.441 and lies fifteen miles E of Croagh Patrick, where the saint is supposed to have spent a 40 day vigil before founding the church.

The Abbey was founded for Canons Regular and dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Abbot Maelbrighde O'Maicin led the building campaign. The Annals of Loch Ce record that 'it was by him the church of Tobair Patraic was begun and its sanctuary and crosses were diligently finished' (Blake). The Annals of the Four Masters state that O'Maicin 'with great exertions begun and finished' Ballintober.

The Annals of the Four Masters record the burning of part of the abbey in 1265, causing the nave to be rebuilt in 1270. In 1536 legislation was passed to dissolve the abbey, but this was not enforced, at least, no deed of surrender has been found from Henry VIII's time (Blake) In 1653 Cromwell's soldiers burned the abbey, unroofing the church and destroying the monastic buildings, dormitories, cloisters and domestic buildings. The first attempt at restoration was 1846, although the Great Famine put an early halt to this (Killanin and Duignan, 87). The restoration was resumed in 1889 by George C Ashlin, with a further campaign in 1965-6.

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Windows

Exterior Decoration

Interior Features

Arches

Tower/Transept arches

Vaulting/Roof Supports

Interior Decoration

String courses

Furnishings

Fonts

Comments/Opinions

As a 'School of the West' Church Ballintober has architectural and sculptural links with many other sites in the west of Ireland. Abbeyknockmoy (Galway), a Cistercian Abbey established some years before Ballintober and also founded by Cathal Crobdearg, provides a number of parallels. For example, the quadripartite vaulting in the chancel at Ballintober has its antecedent at Abbeyknockmoy and is thought to be the work of the same mason (Stalley, 1987, 194, Kalkreuter, 86). The structure of the chancel with its tiered windows and dormitory chamber above the vaulted ceiling, is also found at Abbeyknockmoy, and at Corcumroe (Clare). The overall plan of Ballintober is Cistercian, although it remained aisleless.

The massive dimensions of the crossing and the large supports in the angles, provide evidence that vaulting for the crossing was planned (Leask, 1967, 63). Grose states that the 'tower is down, but the noble arch that supported it remains', but few others support the view that Ballintober had a tower.

Much of the carving at Ballintober Abbey, appears to be the work of one hand. The craftsman has been dubbed, appropriately enough, the 'Ballintober Master' (Harbison, 1976). What is generally acknowledged to be earlier work of his is found at Boyle Abbey (Roscommon), a Cistercian foundation about forty miles east of Ballintober, consecrated c.1218-20. There are many examples of similar features at each site in both figurative and foliage carving and architectural detail and there is an increased maturity in the composition and execution of the carving at Ballintober when compared to Boyle. Stalley suggests that there may be an English source for some of the motifs in the Boyle/Ballintober carvings, via a series of late Romanesque capitals at Christchurch Cathedral in Dublin, the work of an English craftsman. (Stalley 1987, 187; 1979, 116). This has however been disputed by Kalkreuter who questions the existence of a master craftsman who progressed from Boyle to Ballintober and also the link with English sculpture. (136, 137)

Harbison compares the beasts on the chancel corbels to a carving at the bottom L of the interior E window at Clonfert Cathedral, and suggests that the Clonfert carving could be an early work by the Ballintober master. The panel at Clonfert shows a dragon with a triskele tail fighting a smaller, lion-like creature. In motif the carving may be more readily compared to carvings at Inishmaine and Kilmachduagh (Galway), as each shows fighting creatures, one biting the nose or beak of its adversary. The Ballintober carvings also have a greater concern with symmetry than any of these. Stalley suggests that Clonfert is a later imitation of the Ballintober Master's work. (Stalley, 1987, 274)

The bases, jambs and capitals on the Chapter House doorway resemble those of the chancel arch at Inishmaine, which is situated about 10 miles S of Ballintober. The abbey church at Inishmaine may have been built by Cathal's brother Maelisa, who was Prior at Inishmaine, and, as the Annals of Loch record, (267) died there in 1223.

Garton draws attention to the similarities between the beasts carved on the chancel corbels and the fragmentary remains of creatures on the reset S doorway at Killaloe Cathedral. A carving of a ?lion (now headless) on the second order arch has the rounded, full form which is a feature of the Ballintober beasts. The Killaloe beast seems also to have the same corkscrew neck as is found on the Ballintober creatures. This feature may be found on carved snakes on a reset window fragment from Rathblathmaic (Clare) and the E window at Annaghdown (Galway), although it does not occur at Boyle.

The masks between the E windows may be compared to those on the chancel arch at Tuam, although those at Ballintober are more crudely carved and more ferocious in expression.The snakes which flank the masks have been compared with those on the jambs of the reset S doorway at Killaloe Cathedral (Garton, 41).

Ballintober may reasonably be dated to between 1216, the abbey's foundation date, and 1225, the date of its consecration.

A photograph in Champneys (155) shows that the chapter house was still in ruins in the early years of the 20thc. indicating that it was reconstructed during the 1960s restoration campaign.

Bibliography
Annals of Loch Ce, Rolls Series, ed. W Hennessey, London, 1871, 267, 291.
M. Archdall, Monasticon Hibernicum, or, A history of the abbeys, priories, and other religious houses in Ireland: interspersed with memoirs of their several founders and benefactors, and of their abbots and other superiors, to the time of their final suppression, Dublin, 1786, 495.
M. J. Blake, Ballintubber Abbey, County Mayo. Notes on its ancient history, (cuttings from the Tuam Herald), 1903.
A. Champneys, Irish Ecclesiastical Architecture, London, 1910, 152-3.
M. Killanin and M. Duignan, The Shell Guide to Ireland, London, 1962, 2nd ed. 1967, 87.
Rev. T. A. Egan, Ballintubber Abbey, Visitors Guide, (first edition 1963), Ireland, 1990.
F. Grose, The Antiquities of Ireland, Vol I, London 1790, pl. 61, 41.
A. Gwynn and R. N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses in Ireland, 1970, London, 153,158.
P. Harbison, Guide to the National and Historical Monuments of Ireland, Dublin, 1992, 243.
B. Kalkreuter, Boyle Abbey and the School of the West, Bray, 2001, 133-7.
H. Knox, Notes on the Early History of the Dioceses of Tuam, Killala, and Achonry, Dublin, 1904, 103.
H. G. Leask, Irish Churches and Monastic Buildings, II, 1960, 62-63.
M. J. Blake, 'Ballintubber Abbey JGHAS,3:2, 1902, 65-88.
P. Harbison, 'Animals with Interlocking Necks', The Arts in Ireland, Vol. 2 No. 4, 58 fig. 12, 197.
P. Harbison, 'The Ballintober Master and a date for Clonfert Cathedral Chancel', JGAHS, 1976, 96-99.
R. Stalley, 'A Romanesque Sculptor in Connaught', Country Life, 21 June, 1973, 1828-1830.
R. Stalley, 'The Medieval Sculpture of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin', Archaeologia, 106, 1979, 107-122.
R. Stalley, Cistercian Monasteries of Ireland, Yale, 1987,184-189, 274 (footnote 36).
T. Garton, 'A Romanesque Doorway at Killaloe', Journal of the British Archaeological Association, CXXXIV, 1981, 31-57.