A
Brief Biography
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin 
A self-taught
architect, with no formal qualifications, A.W.N. Pugin re-shaped 19th
century Church architecture and became the most outstanding exponent of the
Gothic Revival.
A rejection
of bland post-Industrial Revolution public building and ecclesiastical
structures had led Pugin and other like-minded trend-setters to revive the
elaborate and highly ornate style of the 13th and 14th
centuries, and their soaring churches dominate the skylines of towns and cities
fortunate to attract their patronage.
In the space
of 20 years, he designed over one hundred notable buildings, and his genius
extended to the creation and production of a wide range of furnishings and
decorative artifacts including stained glass, vestments, ceramics, sacred
vessels, wrought iron, wallpaper and book illustrations.
Though best
known for his collaboration with Sir Charles Barry in designing the interior of
the New Palace of Westminster, he also designed
St.
Chad
’s in
Birmingham
, St. Giles in Cheadle, Nottingham Cathedral, the Cathedral
of St. Mary in
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
, the Anglican Cathedral of Southwark in
London
,
Alton
Towers
Church
and Convent, plus some forty other churches.
In
Ireland
most of his works are concentrated in the South East,
particularly in Co. Wexford – the Diocese of Ferns to where he was drawn
through family connections of his patron the Earl of Shrewsbury.
St. Michaels in Gorey, is his last Norman style church and a visit to the ruins
of Dunbrody Abbey in
South Wexford
relieved him of his total commitment to the high Gothic
style and his subsequent designs featured its cruciform shape. Most of his
architectural ideals are strikingly manifest in St. Aidan’s Cathedral. Our
Diocese also contains many fine examples of Pugin’s work in Churches in St.
Peter’s college, St.Alphonsus, Barntown,
Tagoat
Church
, Bree and Ramsgrange.
His other notable Irish works are St Mary’s Cathedral, Killarney, the
library of
St.
Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Adare Manor, the interior of
Lismore Castle, and Presentation Convent, Waterford.
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