A SUMMER'S evening, the shadows darkening along the estuary at Timoleague, the herons stalking the shallows near Timoleague Castle House.
Thinking of the late Lionel Fleming and liking the atmosphere of cool old churches (and also responding to a hint from Laura Travers of Timoleague Castle gardens), I wander into the Church of the Ascension which shares a wall with the castle stable yard.
The gate is open, the churchyard is empty except for an irate peacock who belongs next door, and among the many graves I find that of Lionel Fleming himself. The church door is unlocked, and in the porch a little plate tells me that the tower and walls of the church were renovated in 1993 by the Fleming Trust.
This was established for the benefit of the church and the parish where the Rev Canon Lionel Rothwell Fleming MA ministered from 1908 to 1942.
From here, the tower and walls look fine. On one wall is a sepia photograph of the Maharajah of Gwalior accompanied by Surgeon General Crofts. On another is a plate to note the death of a young Travers of Skinners Horse, Indian Army.
Startled by an angel
Opening the door into the church I am immediately startled by an angel, the first of many. It is the baptismal font, limestone and Carrera marble an angel with a scallop shell, Italianate, and a companion piece to the pair of angels in the Catholic church in Tralee; here it memorialises Alice Maud Travers, killed in a riding accident nearly 100 years ago.
The size and suddenness of the winged and patient angel stimulates the attention for the series of shocks which follow.
"You should see the church," is all Laura Travers had said, "it's quite nice". That was not sufficient warning for an interior which has been described by Jeremy Williams (in A Companion Guide to Architecture in Ireland 1837-1921) as a monument to a living friendship enshrined in a hidden masterpiece of the Arts and Crafts movement in Ireland.
In this building, writes Williams, "the British Empire momentarily transcended the sectarian divide between the Irish Catholic and Protestant, the Indian Muslim and Hindu, personal friendship breaking up hereditary distinctions of caste and colour".
Mosaic ceiling quote Williams because I am a little lost for words of my own, halting in my walk down the nave to go back to the porch to look again at that Maharajah and to link his posture, and his companion, with these densely decorated walls. His companion in the photograph, Surgeon General Aylmer Crofts, was for 20 years his doctor and friend, and a native of this parish.
The ceiling is decorated in mosaic. Who designed it seems to be lost to history, as many family records were destroyed when the castle house was burned down during the Troubles. What is known is that the scheme for the chancel walls was started by Robert Augustus Travers in 1894, when groups of Italian workmen laid out the myriad ceramic pieces on the lawn of the house.
The mosaic, in a design of leaves and flowers, is enhanced by gold leaf which is reflected in eight painted panels - angel after angel serenely carrying ribboned legends and radiating golden beams - set in the ceiling beneath the hammerbeam roof as a memorial to Laura Isobel Travers. The effect is of intense elaboration and yet of great simplicity; somehow the designs, although intricate in composition, are so spaced that there is no sense of crowding or density.
The ornamentation of the chancel walls includes oval depictions of the Paschal Lamb; the church brass is meticulous but understated, the organ - said to have been bought for 10 shillings second hand from the church in Skibbereen - is large enough for one of the lower stops to be blocked off in case its vibrations dislodge the roof slates.
That's just the chancel. The next Robert Travers, son of Robert Augustus, carried on the work in the main body of the church to commemorate both his father and his brother, Spenser Robert Valentine Travers, killed at Gallipoli, aged 22.
The mosaic scheme continues, coating the walls with millions of scales, exquisitely styled arrangements of leaves and stems and flowers, edges of shamrock complementing patterns of lotus blossoms and delicate Islamic shapes. Both north and south walls are a coherent if dazzling statement of intention, design, and craftsmanship.
The only place the unity falters is on the west wall, which is covered by a somewhat flat representational perhaps too devotional mosaic of the Ascension with the Apostles, according to Williams "in a group correctly garmented beneath a topographical Jerusalem".
The south wall bears he inscription: "In affectionate and, grateful remembrance of Surgeon General Aylmer Martin Crofts, C.I.E., Indian Medical Service. Born 25 May 1854 Died 12 April 1915". The work was done at the expense of Major General H.H. the Maharajah Sir Madho Rao Scindia of Gwalior, whose eldest son's life had been saved by Crofis who was the Maharajah's personal physician.
In a dangerous condition
The first mention of a church on this site dates from 1291; the lands were in the possession of the Barrymore family until the bankrupt seventh Earl sold his Irish estates. The castle and church were bought by Lord Riversdale who, in 1802, took on much of the cost of rebuilding the church, which by then had become dangerous through age and decay.
In 1811 the new church was consecrated; in 1865, when the Travers family had replaced the Riversdales in Timoleague, it was stricken by its first controversy. The then Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross considered the new stained glass window (by Warrington) above the altar to be a graven image and would only consecrate the new chancel and vestry if the window were covered by a cloth.
A curtain was hurriedly obtained from the drawing room at Timoleague House, but from then on the Travers family, in church affairs at least, went their own way.
Neil Travers, whose son Robert and daughter in law Laura now live at the house, says a great deal of the family money was poured into the decoration before the Maharajah made his contribution. The result is this unique church. The Travers family went in style to the graveyard too. The earlier Travers patriarchs established a separate family cemetery where the remains of 11 members are bordered by climbing roses, hostas, rosemary and Ladies' Mantle.
Gazing at this apparent unity, Neil Travers smiles: his own parents refused to be buried there - "they'd fought with them all!"