In leaving Rome for Dublin, we have moved from one city with a lot of churches to another city with a lot of churches. (Way more in the one than the other, but still…) We knew that, but what we didn’t realize is that we would live a stone’s throw of both of the city’s impressive cathedrals, Christ Church Cathedral and St Patrick’s Cathedral. Each is in the Liberties, just about a 7-minute walk from our flat!
We also didn’t realize that neither one is a Catholic church. One thinks of Ireland as a Catholic country (and one is right to do so), but both of these cathedrals belong to the Church of Ireland, that is, the Irish equivalent of the Church of England. There is no Catholic cathedral in Dublin. Instead, St Mary’s Church serves as pro-cathedral and is the seat of the Catholic archbishop of Dublin. There are historical reasons for all of these things, of course – stay tuned for more on Irish history and religious questions – but it was still a surprise to us.
Christ Church Cathedral
Our many recent visitors were keen to see both cathedrals, so we’ve been able to spend a good bit of time in them. We started with Christ Church, appropriately since it holds formal precedence. (They crown the – Anglican – archbishop here, though otherwise the churches are equal.) Christ Church, whose official name is Church of the Holy Trinity, is largely a mixture of earlier buildings and 19th-century renovation. A Viking church stood on the site as far back as 1030, and the in the 12th and 13th centuries the Anglo-Normans rebuilt and expanded it. Stay tuned for more on Viking Dublin as well!
It’s a striking church inside, with beautiful stained-glass windows (19th century), a lovely nave, and an impressive choir stall. There are a number of interesting things to see in addition to the usual plaques and commemorative statues. One of these is Strongbow’s Tomb: he was Richard de Clare, leader of the Anglo-Normans when they captured Dublin in 1170. A roof collapse in 1562 destroyed his actual tomb. What you see today is a replacement, showing a fully-armoured (anonymous) knight. There is also the heart of St Laurence O’Toole, the patron saint of Dublin. The Cathedral has only his heart; the rest of him is buried in France.
We have to mention the crypt as well, because it has a lot of lovely things to see, including the cathedral’s copy of Magna Carta. There are costumes as well that visitors can put on for photographic purposes. And perhaps the coolest venue for a gift shop that we have ever seen.
St Patrick’s Cathedral
St Patrick, of course, is the patron saint of Ireland, and his Dublin cathedral was built about 1220. This one too has had its share of collapses and rebuildings. The current church owes its restoration largely to Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness (yes, that Guinness) who agreed to restore what was in the 1800s a largely decrepit building, provided that he could be the architect. He did a good job!
One of the grandest things here is the Boyle Monument, built by Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork in 1632 in memory of his second wife. Ancestors above and children below adorn this four-storeyed monument, so it looks like a family tree in 3-D. One of the children pictured is the founder of chemistry, Robert Boyle, associated most famously with Boyle’s Law.
For us, however, the highlight of St Patrick’s is that it was the church of Jonathan Swift, one of our literary heroes. Swift was Dean of the Cathedral from 1713 to 1745. During this time, he wrote many of his famous satirical works. The Cathedral contains the pulpit from which he preached. He was famous, apparently, for his long sermons, and he berated those who fell asleep. And the Cathedral is also the place where he is buried, alongside Esther Johnson, nicknamed ‘Stella’ (Latin for ‘star’), whom he tutored as a young girl and who became his lifelong partner. (Their relationship remains delightfully ambiguous.) Alas, the day we were there, the bronze marker over his grave was being conserved, but Stella’s was there.
We’ll be back to both Dublin cathedrals with or without visitors, since there is a lot to see in both. It’s the neighbourly thing to do. And we’ll make a trek over to St Mary’s soon to check out that pro-cathedral.
