JONAH JONES’S GLASS – RAINHILL HALL (FORMERLY LOYOLA HALL)
In 1965–66 Jonah created a body of work for the Jesuit retreat centre at Loyola Hall in Rainhill, just east of Liverpool. The main feature in the chapel was the two mirror-image Immortal Diamond windows of stained glass, based on the final lines in Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem ‘That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection’:
In a flash, at a trumpet crash
I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond
Is immortal diamond.
Directly below these windows in the Blake Room are two smaller windows, representing the crown of thorns; seen from the outside with the lights on, the upper and lower windows form a continuum. As Jonah explained, “The immortal diamond in the windows looks ahead to a safe golden road in spite of thorns, through the cross to the light.” The retreat centre closed in 2014, and the building is now a hotel and spa known as Rainhill Hall.
GWYDR JONAH JONES – RAINHILL HALL (GYNT LOYOLA HALL)
Ym 1965–66 creodd Jonah gorff o waith ar gyfer y ganolfan encil Jesiwitaidd yn Loyola Hall, Rainhill ger Lerpwl. Y canolbwynt yn y capel oedd y ddwy ffenestr wydr lliw a enwyd “Diemwnt Anfarwol” yn ôl llinellau olaf cerdd Gerard Manley Hopkins ‘That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection’:
In a flash, at a trumpet crash
I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond
Is immortal diamond.
Yn uniongyrchol islaw’r ffenestri hyn yn Ystafell Blake ceir dwy ffenestr lai sy’n dangos y goron ddrain; wrth edrych arnynt o’r tu allan gyda’r golau ymlaen, mae’r ffenestri uchaf ac isaf yn ffurfio continwwm. Esboniodd Jonah, “Edrycha’r diemwnt anfarwol ymlaen at y ffordd euraidd ddiogel er gwaetha’r drain, trwy’r groes tua’r goleuni.” Caewyd y ganolfan encil yn 2014, ac mae’r adeilad nawr yn cael ei ddefnyddio fel gwesty a sba dan yr enw Rainhill Hall.
