Holy Trinity Church, Templebreedy is a parish church of the

Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland ( ga, Eaglais na hÉireann, ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Kirk o Airlann, ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the second ...

close to Crosshaven, in

County Cork County Cork ( ga, Contae Chorcaí) is the largest and the southernmost county of Ireland, named after the city of Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. Its largest market towns are ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. It was designed by

William Burges William Burges (; 2 December 1827 – 20 April 1881) was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neoc ...

, who also designed Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral. The building opened in 1868 and remains an active parish church.

History

The foundation stone of Holy Trinity Church was laid on 31 October 1866 by the Right Rev'd John Gregg, D.D., then

Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross The Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross is the Church of Ireland Ordinary of the united Diocese of Cork, Cloyne and Ross in the Province of Dublin. The current bishop is the Right Reverend Paul Colton BCL, DipTh, MPhil, LLM, PhD. He was consecrated ...

. The town had been growing in popularity as a holiday resort and its original church (St Matthew's Church, built in 1778) was deemed insufficient for the increasing population.

was appointed architect for a new church with a budget of £1,700, of which £500 was subscribed by parishioners and £1,200 given by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The site for the new church was given by Mr. Thomas Hayes of Crosshaven House, "who gave a carte blanche to the chairman the Rev'd M. Archall, to go over all his property and select whatever site he chose for the building, and the church would be erected on one of the best fields on his estate". The church was consecrated on Trinity Sunday in 1868, being dedicated to the

Holy Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...

Architecture and description

The original design for the church included a substantial tower, its inspiration drawn from the medieval campanile of northern Italy, and this can be seen in an illustration in ''The Irish Builder'' from 15 April 1873. The accompanying article spoke of the completion of the tower as fulfilling "one of the happiest of architectural compositions it has been our pleasure to describe for a very long time." However, the tower was never built and the church comprises a more modest set of structures. It is however identified by architectural historians as recognisably Burges's work, with

J. Mordaunt Crook Joseph Mordaunt Crook, (born 27 February 1937), generally known as J. Mordaunt Crook, is an English architectural historian and specialist on the Georgian and Victorian periods. He is an authority on the life and work of the Victorian architec ...

noting that "the smooth plate tracery, the low-slung battered porch, the emphatic string courses: these are all Burgesian trademarks." Mordaunt Crook also notes the interior as "measur(ing) up to the quality of the exterior - notably the pelican-dragon corbels of the chancel arch and the stained glass at the East end."

References

{{William Burges 19th-century Church of Ireland church buildings William Burges church buildings Churches in County Cork Church of Ireland church buildings in the Republic of Ireland Churches in the Diocese of Cork, Cloyne and Ross 19th-century churches in the Republic of Ireland