page_title: Honan Chapel
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Honan Chapel / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: Church interior. Honan chapel
context_page_description: The Honan Chapel, is a small Catholic collegiate church built in the Celtic-Romanesque revival style on the grounds of University College Cork, Ireland. Designed in 1914, the building was completed in 1916 and fully furnished by 1917. Its architecture and fittings are representative of the Celtic revival movement which evoked the aesthetic style found in Ireland and Britain between the 7th and 12th centuries.
  Its construction was initiated and supervised by a Dublin solicitor John O'Connell, a leading member of the Celtic revival and Arts and Crafts movements. He was funded by Isabella Honan, the last member of a wealthy Cork family, who provided large donations towards the build of the chapel. O'Connell oversaw both the architectural design and the commissioning of its exterior carvings and interior statuettes, floor, furniture and liturgical collection. He closely guided the architect James F. McMullen and the builders John Sisk and Sons, and hired the craftsmen and artists involved in its artwork, many of whom incorporated elements of the Art Nouveau style.
context_section_description: O'Connell was mainly inspired by medieval architecture and the Honan Chapel's architectural style is Celtic-Romanesque. Compared to the decorative and sculpted elements of the interior, its architecture, austere and modest, has been described by architectural historian and conservationist Frank Keohane as "a little too commonplace and formulaic". 
  The site is located on a hillside overlooking the valley of the River Lee. The western entrance is approached through double-hinged wrought iron gates. Its façade was influenced by St. Cronan's Church, Roscrea and contains an arcade and gabled wall. Keohane describes its Antae as "surmounted by improbable pinnacles...and probably better regarded as clasping buttresses".
  The doorway contains moldings carved from lozenge and pellets, and once contained an iron grille which has since been removed. It is capped by three limestone ribbed vaults, supported by capitals carrying reliefs of the heads of six Munster saints: Finnbarr of Cork, Coleman of Cloyne; St. Gobnait of Ballyvourney; Brendan of Kerry, Declán of Ardmore and Íte of Killeedy. Each figure is further represented in the stained-glass windows. The reliefs were sculpted by Henry Emery, assisted by students at the nearby Cork School of Art. The tympanum over the door was designed by the sculptor Oliver Sheppard and is dominated by the figure of St. Finbarr, dressed in bishop's vestments. The timber doors hang on wrought-iron strap-work hinges designed by the architect William Scott in (according to the writer Paul Larmour) a "Celticized art nouveau" style.
  The chapel's small interior has a very simple layout: a main entrance, six-bay nave, two-bay square chancel and a nunnery. It does not contain either lateral aisles or transepts. The oblong nave is 72 by 28 feet (22 by 8.5 m), and contained within a timber barrel vaulted ceiling that ends at the chancel which is 26 by 18 feet (7.9 by 5.5 m). The sacristy is on the north side (left, looking towards the altar) under the bell tower.
  The nave is relatively plain and lacks shrines where worshippers could light candles or place flowers near devotional images; in this way, it is similar to a Protestant church. Its plain, round campanile are inspired by 9th-century round towers.
  The building is listed as a protected structure under Section 51 of the Irish Planning and Development Act.
caption: The nave, looking west from the chancel towards the main entrance
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