Our Lady & St Nicholas' Church Dunmore
The redesigned sanctuary of Our Lady & St Nicholas' Church has been transformed to become a worthy place for the celebration of the sacred mysteries. It has been enlarged to allow and encourage dignified liturgical celebration. At the centre stands a resplendent granite altar salvaged from the cathedral in Tuam. Here it serves as the focal point of parish worship, where the faithful gather to offer prayers and partake in the Eucharistic feast.
A unique aspect of this project was the inclusion of a new flexible pastoral space for the parish, a space for meetings, adoration, catechesis. Like many parishes the size of the congregation was smaller than when the church was first built in 1957 and so rather than building an extension a new meeting room was inserted into the nave. A new extended entrance lobby was created from which the nave or the meeting room is accessed. For large celebrations such as Easter and Christmas, glazed partitions can be opened to allow the meeting room to revert to being part of the nave, restoring almost the original seating capacity of the nave.
The new meeting room takes it's architectural character from the church itself. The zig zag glazed timber walls respond to the brick zig zag walls of the nave and this is repeated in the perforated timber screens that serve to mark the new room as a space set apart.
Time has been taken to carefully detail the fabric of the new meeting room to integrate it into the sacred space, to be a worthy insertion.
The new pastoral room provides a much-needed flexible space that supports various parish activities and ministries. Here it is laid out to provide additional seating capacity for liturgies in the main body of the church. It can just as easily be used for meetings, children's' liturgies, catechesis and rehearsal space for choirs.
The ambo is designed to complement the altar in form and material. Using the same granite as the altar it's rounded form suggests a formal link. The design is simple but by virtue of the shape of the steps in the vicinity, and the location of the ambo, a place for the Word of God is created that complements the place for presiding and the place for the eucharist. The scale of the ambo is important as it must defer to the reader who is proclaiming the Word. With this arrangement, i.e. the location and creation of a 'place', and the scale of the ambo itself, it is clear that when the reader approaches the ambo that an important action of the eucharistic celebration is about to take place, and all should listen.
Previous sanctuary prior to renovation. The sanctuary was compromised by too many steps around the altar and ambo. Here again the baptismal font (in the foreground) is located inappropriately in the sanctuary and 'floats', with no clear baptistery area. The Presider's chair too is inconspicuous and precariously placed on a single step platform. I is not an appropriate symbol of presidency.
The new baptismal font is designed in granite like the rest of the liturgical furniture and has a form related to the that of the altar. It is located in a new baptismal space created in front of the new meeting room at the beginning of the central aisle.
For the sacrament of baptism, the meeting room comes into its own. The fullness of the sacrament is characterised by processions - from entrance to a place of the Word, to the baptistery and then to the altar. Here, having received the family at the entrance in the enlarged narthex, all process into the meeting room space which, in preparation for the sacrament, has the folding partition fully opened to the nave and the baptistery. The room is laid out for the families so that they face the baptismal font. A temporary lectern is present here so that the Word can be proclaimed prior to the baptismal action at the font. The sacrament is completed with the procession to the altar and the final blessing.
