How might our parish churches look like in 2050 #2

 

To look forward we need to look back first.   It appears that most Roman Catholic Churches, in Ireland, were designed, constructed and laid out in the early to mid-19^th Century. It was a time of rising confidence and a thriving but small Irish middle class after the catastrophe of the famine years.  The long persecution of penal times largely ended with the Emancipation Act of 1829.  Some churches, including my own parish church here in Goresbridge, were built some years before official Emancipation.

Typically, rural churches or chapels were simple but functional laid out in a cruciform shape with the sanctuary in a small space at the Eastern end of the central nave or aisle.   There were statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary and often of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the side altars to the right and to the left of the sanctuary, that is, in the North and South transepts. Devotional candles were a frequent sight.