HIS018000 Archives

Ireland’s geological bedrock, though often overlooked, contains an exceptional range of varicoloured marbles comparable to continental varieties and in some cases superior. Marble in the Making focuses on Victorian Ireland, an architectural landscape characterised by neo-Gothic design and the high point of indigenous marble production. It demonstrates that the architecture of this period is distinguished by native polychromy, a feature that was shaped by the resurgence of Gothic architecture and driven by post-Famine entrepreneurship and industrialisation.

This is the first major study of Irish marble. It uncovers the largely unheard-of marble industry by tracing stone from quarry source to marble works to building. The book’s interdisciplinary approach identifies key marble deposits and their distinctive characteristics, outlines workshop and quarry practices, reconstructs trade paths and reveals connections between communities. It enables a holistic and contextual attribution of architectural marble and broadens the understanding of nineteenth-century Irish Gothic Revival architecture. Moreover, this research repositions Irish marble within an international framework, highlighting its contribution to transnational material culture and geological heritage.

In 1854, John Henry Newman, one of the foremost intellectual figures of the nineteenth century, was officially installed as the rector of the first Catholic university in Ireland. University Church (constructed in 1855–6) was Newman’s first objective when he agreed to the rectorship and it can be considered as a tangible manifestation of the idea behind the unprecedented Catholic university in Dublin – the posing of an erudite Catholic alternative to post-Enlightenment secularism and Protestant hegemony through a style-based analogy to the early Church.

Despite physically embodying what Newman wished to achieve in and through his new university, this ‘early Christian-style’ church, which drew upon Roman and Byzantine basilicas, has received little attention. This book charts for the first time the significant place that the building occupies within the history of Victorian revivalist architecture. Niamh Bhalla explores the meaningful connection between the church’s context and the ambiguity of its ‘early Christian’ style. In the intersection of these two things, a significant monument was created. The study of University Church therefore provides an effective lens to understand more comprehensively the architectural revivalism that dominated the nineteenth century, particularly the first stirrings of basilican and Byzantine revivalist architectures in the British Isles.

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Marble in the Making

Newman University Church, Dublin