Stained Glass and Artwork in Gorey

Listowel fire station early morning in October 2023

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People I met

It was lovely to meet Cáit Baker and Marie McMahon on their day out when I was on my day out.

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Last of the Kanturk Twomey Treasure Trove

Cunn Ella were an Irish company making beautiful blouses. Google didn’t have much on them so I don’t know any more.

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Art Treasures in Gorey

Michael O’Callaghan sent us this great story.

I am starting todays walk from Christchurch in Gorey which is just a few hundred metres from where I live. I pass this lovely building several times a day and remember its great history since it was built on a site donated by Stephen Ram in 1861. It was probably replacing an earlier church built in 1619. It can truly be said that it had a real part in the development of Gorey over the 400 years

Christ Church Gorey has a very nice link to a great art treasure. 

There is a lovely Harry Clarke-stained glass window to the left of the entrance door of Christchurch commissioned by Marie Lea-Wilson, the subject being Saint Stephen and it was dedicated in 1922, in remembrance of her husband Captain Percival Lea Wilson. This is one of two windows in the church dedicated to him. He had been involved in the 1916 rising and mistreated prisoners who were held in the Rotunda hospital after they had surrendered in the GPO.

His mistreatment of Tom Clarke was noted by some prisoners who swore revenge. After the troubles he was posted to France but by the end of 1917 he was back in Ireland and was posted to Gorey. He was not popular here because he carried out too many raids looking for arms. On June 15th, 1920, he was walking home from the RIC barracks in Gorey and went to Eason’s stand in the railway station to buy his paper, but as he was heading back home at Westmount on the Ballycanew Road he was shot dead. The RIC were unaware that Michael Collins had given the order to have him killed. 

His wife Marie decided to stay on in Gorey and commissioned the Harry Clarke stained-glass window. 

Later she made a trip to Edinburgh and while browsing bought a painting called ‘The Betrayal of Christ’, for 12 guineas in 1922. Marie went on to study medicine and she had the painting hanging in her room. One day in 1934 she decided to have a clear out of her house and gave the painting to the Jesuits who hung it in their dining room until 1993 when they asked the National Gallery to look at it and there was the missing Caravaggio ‘The Taking of Christ’, worth €50,000,000 but as we all know, the Jesuits have given it to the state on indefinite loan. 

Marie died in 1971 in 19 Fitzwilliam Place and is buried in Deansgrange. Percival lea Wilson is buried in Putney Vale Cemetery in London with the inscription on his grave saying he was assassinated in Gorey in June 1920.

They were different times.

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Convent Cross

Calvary at Convent Cross

Lovely stone was as a backdrop to a bench, a bin and a postbox

Edward VII postbox

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A Fact

Halloween began as a pagan festival, Samhain, in Ireland 2000 years ago.

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