Early Byzantinism in the British Isles: Newman University Church, Dublin

Bhalla, Niamh (2026) Early Byzantinism in the British Isles: Newman University Church, Dublin. In: The Routledge Handbook of the Modern Reception of Byzantium. Routledge, London and New York, pp. 226-236. ISBN 9781032077802

Abstract

On 18 May 1854, John Henry Newman (1801–90), prominent figure in the Oxford Movement and celebrated convert to Roman Catholicism, established the first Catholic university in the British Isles in Dublin. The Romano-Byzantine church Newman built there (1856) – his first declared objective during his tenure – embodied the ideal behind his university. Yet University Church has received little attention, both because of its location in what was then an impoverished, Catholic-majority region of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and because of its unusual Byzantine revival style, which sat awkwardly within Victorian worldviews due to its paradoxical associations with both the 'Oriental' East and the Orthodox Church. This case study explores the intentional deployment of this ambiguous and disruptive Romano-Byzantine style for University Church as a means of declaring a new future for Catholics.

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