Ashlin, George Coppinger
George Coppinger Ashlin (1837-1921) was born in a house named “Carrigrenane” in Little Island, Co Cork.
He received his early education at the Collège de St Servais, Liège. While at St Mary’s College, Oscott (1851–5), with which A. W. N. Pugin was strongly associated, he studied drawing and perspective and developed an interest in architecture. Between 1856 and 1860 he was articled to E. W. Pugin (whose sister Mary he married in 1860) and in 1858 he entered the Royal Academy Schools, London.
When in 1859 E. W. Pugin received the commission for SS Peter and Paul, Cork, he made Ashlin a partner with responsibility for their Irish work, a position he retained until about 1870. Their practice was primarily ecclesiastical, the remodelling (1869) of Enniscorthy Castle for Isaac Newton Wallop (1825–91), 5th Earl of Portsmouth, being one of their few domestic projects.
They worked on some 25 religious buildings. The Augustinian church of SS Augustine and John, Thomas Street, Dublin (commissioned 1860, opened 1874), in a style inspired by French architecture, is one of their most successful designs. The site drops towards the river, so that while the entrance is at street level the nave and chancel are raised considerably above the surrounding streets, a dramatic effect enhanced by the soaring spire.
Other large churches by Pugin & Ashlin include the Sacred Heart (1863), Donnybrook,and St Joseph’s (1866), Glasthule.
Their churches in the countryside, mainly in counties Wexford, Cork and Kerry, are simpler, with straightforward Latin-cross plans, good quality stonework and simple bellcotes. The church at Lady’s Island,Co. Wexford adjoins the parish of Tagoat, the church of which was designed by A. W. N. Pugin in 1846.
Ashlin’s greatest work with E. W. Pugin is St Colman’s Cathedral (completed 1919) at Queenstown (now Cóbh), Co. Cork.
The partnership broke up in 1870 and Ashlin practised on his own. During this time he designed a number of churches, including St. Mary Magdalen’s Dominican Church in Drogheda,
St. Joseph’s Redemptorist Church in Dundalk, the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Clonakilty, the Church of the Holy Rosary, Midleton, and the Church of Ireland Adelaide Memorial Church in Myshall Co. Carlow
In 1902 entered a partnership with his former pupil Thomas Aloysius Coleman (1865-1950). Together they completed the interior decoration of St. Colman’s Cathedral. Later their firm designed the new Clery’s Department Store in Dublin, to replace the one destroyed during the 1916 Easter Rising. His nephew, Martin Ashlin (d 1942), became a partner in 1908. George C. Ashlin died on 10th December 1921 in Killiney Co. Dublin.
