Survey Data
Reg No
50910263
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Social
Original Use
Gates/railings/walls
In Use As
Gates/railings/walls
Date
1860 - 1870
Coordinates
315912, 233787
Date Recorded
24/11/2015
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached gateway, erected c. 1865, to St. Theresa's Carmelite Church. Limestone screen comprising ashlar piers, each having quarry-faced panels above and below boss, rising to plain imposts, segmental-headed entablature with rock-faced panelling to spandrels, and archivolt supporting cross-shaped finial. Relief-carved scroll over archivolt bearing Carmelite motto 'zelo zei atus sum pro domino deo exercituum'. Round-arch opening inset with ornate double-leaf cast-iron gate with overthrow having stiff leaf and rosette motifs. Set into painted rendered wall to southeast of St. Theresa’s Church.
Appraisal
An ornate limestone gate screen with cast-iron gate constituting a striking approach to St. Theresa’s Carmelite Church. The church is one of the oldest standing Catholic churches surviving in the city, lending it special religious and social significance. Daniel O’Connell, who played a key role in the campaign for Catholic Emancipation, is known to have attended mass and held meetings here in the early nineteenth century. The original late eighteenth-century building has been extended and altered numerous times, with a campanile and this rear entry gate being added to the designs of John Bourke about 1865. The elaborate surround is Baroque in style, bearing the Carmelite motto and enhanced by a well-preserved set of cast-iron gates and overthrow, embellished with stiff leaf and rosette motifs. The gate screen is a striking and well-composed feature in the narrow pedestrian thoroughfare of Johnson's Court.