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Publications | Down Survey | 2000 Issue Contents James
Connelly's angels Memorials to the wealthy and famous have been erected for many hundreds of years but the common headstone, as we know it today, only became popular from the eighteenth century onwards. The early headstones were often carved in localised styles, quite unlike the stones erected from the later nineteenth century onwards where common styles became popular throughout Britain and Ireland. The study of the vast wealth of indigenous stone-carving styles in Ireland is still in its infancy, but several groups have been described. Much early work was undertaken by Ada Leask and published in numerous articles in the Journal of the Royal Society ofAntiguaries of lreland. More recently the work of early headstone cutters in the south-east of Ireland has been described by Grogan. McCormick has dealt with an eighteenth century group in central Ulster, while Smith has described the work of early nineteenth century masons in the north-east of county Down.
Griffith's lialuation of about 1860 shows that James had ten separate holdings in the townland of Burren, the largest of which was less than ten acres, and in all they totalled just over twenty-six acres. The total valuation of his holdings, including buildings, was £ 19. ln the social world in which he lived he was by no means poor and with his stonemason business he could be categorised as a member of the skilled working class.
His own headstone in Burren indicates that he was born in 1803, the eldest child of Owen and Margaret Connelly. He had two younger brothers, Peter and John, who were probably twins, born in 1810. They subsequently died in England. A sister, Catherine, died in 1836 at the age of seventeen. James's father died in 1823 and with the death of his sister Catherine, James seems to have looked after his widowed mother until her death in February 1857 at the age of seventy-nine years. James was fifty-four and still single at this stage and one might suppose, in the manner of the times, that marriage was postponed because his mother would not tolerate another woman in the house. With her death, James was now finally free to seek a wife and on 28 January 1858 he married Mary Maginness who was of the relatively young age of twenty-one. They had a single child, Owen, who was born in 1862. James died in 1885 at the age of eighty-two while his wife lived on for another thirty years, dying in 1915. James does not seem to have left a will which would have provided us with much more family information. The main period of his stonecarving was between 1835 and 1870. He variously signed his stones 'J.C' or 'J.C.S' while on the finer stones he often used 'James Connelly Sculptor' or 'James Connelly Burren'. Many of his works are unsigned but the individuality of his carving makes them easy to identify. Most of his work comprised vertical headstones, but for a few important patrons recumbent slabs were carved. These include the stone of Rev Peter Garvey (d. 1854) at Hilltown and Hugh Murphy (d. 1860) at Kilcoo. The shape of the stones is unexceptional and often inelegant but it is his detailed carvings of angels that single him out as a sculptor of great skill. Most of his stones were surmounted by a pair of angels. They generally consisted of simple cherubs with wings extending to the sides of the head. In his finer work, they consisted of fully clothed figures often holding a book or a cross. Herald angels blowing their trumpets to announce the second coming were also carved and these have the greatest variation of depiction with some having winding biblical quotations emanating from their trumpets, usually 'Time shall be no longer' based on Revelation 10. 6. The images of these angels are generally between three and six inches high. James Connelly's repertoire may have been limited, but his skill was exceptional. Details of the feathers of the wings, the clothes, and the facial expressions have survived as fresh as the day they were carved, due to the qualities of the Bangor blue stone. James was not a great artist in terms of realism and the term 'primitive' fittingly describes his style. Yet there is great exuberance and movement in much of his work. The herald angels are shown in both a running and t7ying stance with their tunics billowing in the wind. These tend to be either obviously male or of indeterminate sex but a graceful female trumpeter appears on the Kilcoo stone of 1860. The curves of the body are realistically represented as are the lower limbs showing through the clothing. James has also run the short hair of the angel into the top of its wings to produce the effect of a long mass of flowing hair, thus further emphasising the figure's femininity. Could this image be based on James' young wife Mary whom he married two years before? Some of the angels who are depicted carrying books are rather stern. In Burren, a grounded angel carrying a book looks like a solemn priest who has inadvertently sprung wings. Others border on the humorous. One herald angel in Kilbroney is delightfully overweight while an extremely curious angel at Burren is bald, with one arm and wing and no legs! The rotund angel is rather crudely carved, probably because it was one of his earliest works, carved in 1821 when he was still a teenager. In the case of the cherubs, the diversity of James's imagination can be seen in the feather arrangements of the wings and in the range of hair styles. Many of these are carved in relief while others are simply incised. Occasionally he departs from his angelic theme. At Burren, two stones are crowned with elaborate crucifixion scenes and there is a further example in Kilbroney. In the centre is Christ on the Cross, and he is flanked on either side by his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene, both shown in kneeling positions. The figure of Christ is realistically carved but the other figure are slightly awkward although the faces are of fine quality. This note serves as no more than an introduction
to the work of James Connelly. He is important, not only because
of his skill and the diversity of his work, but also because he
was working at a time when headstones were entering a period of
terminal uniformity and blandness from which, with a few exceptions,
they have yet to emerge. The images that he used were perhaps oldfashioned:
the cherubs, especially, would have been more at home in an eighteenth
century Ulster graveyard. Nevertheless he was also moving with modern
trends which in this instance worked in his favour. The earlier
stone carvers used local stones but he was using imported Dr Finbar McCormick is a Lecturer in the department of Archaeology and Palaeoecology at the Queen s University of Belfast. He has written extensively on agricultural history and monastic archaeology, and has recently published a history of Ireland's wild fauna. Notes and references.
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