The document discusses stained glass windows created by Clarke Studios for churches in Ireland and Africa connected to Catholic missionary work. It includes images and descriptions of a 1948 window in Killeshandra, Ireland commemorating Bishop Shanahan and featuring accurate details of African figures. Letters from 1958 discuss Clarke Studios' designs for the Carmelite Convent in Nairobi, Kenya, including a nun's preferences that the angel faces be strong and manly rather than girlish. The document examines Clarke Studios' depictions of African subjects and connections to Catholic missions in their stained glass work.

1. Clarke Studios:
The African Connection
The Clarke Studios Symposium
06 February 2015
Dr Fiona Bateman, NUI Galway

2. Killeshandra window (1948)

3. Images of Bishop Shanahan

4. Detail of Bishop Joseph Shanahan
Killeshandra Window

5. Killeshandra window 1948-9

7. Head tie detail: Killeshandra window

8. Photos supplied for Killeshandra window

9. ‘…the child on her back is extremely well done.’
Letter from Sr M. Catherine, Killeshandra, 30 June 1948

10. Calabar Cathedral

11. Window in Calabar Cathedral

12. Profile photo from Killeshandra file
(marked: ‘shoulder detail’)

13. Detail from a photo – more profiles

14. Male African figure in
the Killeshandra
window.

15. Letters from Sr Teresa Dymphna,
Carmelite Convent, Nairobi. (1958)
• ‘Fra Angelicus angels – some of them anyway –
are beautiful. I don’t care much for the modern
type with bobbed hair etc.’
• In May 1958, she reported that she was
delighted with the beautiful designs: ‘they are
like the dream angels I had in mind but could not
satisfactorily describe’…‘I should like the faces
strong and manly – not the girlish sort.’

16. Side windows from the Carmelite Convent,
Nairobi (fitted 19th
March 1959).

17. Carmelite Convent, Nairobi

18. For their help in researching details and
finding images, I am grateful to Fr Tim
Redmond in Kiltegan; Fr Edmund Hogan,
SMA; Dr Brian Kirby Provincial Archivist
for the Capuchin Fathers; and Ken Ryan,
Abbey Stained Glass.