‘Spaces of movement and meditation: Franciscan choirs in Ireland’ (original) (raw)

Abstract

This workshop was about the position of the choir in mendicant churches, and Dr D’Aughton and I chose to focus our attention on the remains of the Franciscan churches in Ireland. The important number of Franciscan friaries that have survived in the modern landscape, sometimes extensively, offer architectural historians, art historians and archaeologists a unique opportunity to observe the material realisation of Franciscan ideals and their attitudes to the use of space, and to tackle questions about architecture, decoration and division of space. In this paper, we discussed the position of the choir in Irish Franciscan churches in how it related to the general division and organisation of the ecclesiastical space. We looked at the space of the choir as the area used by the friars, as well as in its relation to the lay community, materially, spiritually and symbolically. This discussion was based on architectural and archaeological evidence as well as textual and iconographical evidence: a number of sculpted figural images and tombs also survive in these churches, and are key to our understanding of the friars’ novel approach to the ecclesiastical space, in particular the role of the choir.

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