In honor of the Pope’s visit to the United States I thought I would take the opportunity to share some photos of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. Dublin is full of churches. No church is more important or impressive than the historic Saint Patrick’s.
The church was founded in 1191. 1191! It has seen a lot of history including King James and his Jacobites before losing in the Battle of the Boyne, Church Dean Jonathan Swift and his Gulliver’s Travels, and a choir school founded in 1432 which is still in operation.
A “door of reconciliation” is on display where it is said the 8th Earl of Kildare during a Butler/Fitzgerald dispute, where one of the group sought refuge in the church, cut a hole in the door so the rivals could “chance their arm” by shaking on a truce.
Be sure to visit the west end of the nave, the choir isles, the ladies chapel, the Saint Patrick’s statue, the Huguenot Bell, the staircase to the organ loft, the celtic grave slab, and the Swift Memorial and graves. Do be sure to take a moment to enjoy the garden while overlooking the architecture.
To read about some of my other Irish shenanigans please click here…
Bulldog Travels / Photos By Jenny 
Good job on taking us through the cathedral. I am inspired by this architecture. You say the church was founded in 1191, but when was the cathedral built? And how long did it take? I’ll have to look those up! The long stretch of historical architecture in other parts of the world is so amazing to me, compared what we can see in the U.S. I love that spiral staircase constructed with columns. What does it lead to? And I am also intrigued by the door with a hold cut into it. Great story!
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Thanks for the comments. I am glad you enjoyed the post.
In the research I did it showed that building started that year but obviously continued later to make it look like it does today. Their website says that the present building was raised in 1220.
http://www.stpatrickscathedral.ie/index.aspx
Wikipedia has some gorgeous photos too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Patrick%27s_Cathedral,_Dublin
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The architecture is beautiful! Lovely post.
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Impressive, the stairs are especially fascinating! I love the architecture of Cathedral, it is always unique from one to another!
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I thought there was a typo when I saw 1191 then realized that we are talking about another world. The scale of time is amazing when we live in a country where we are happy to see a building from the 1700’s. The wood carved steeples with flags, swords, and helmets are amazing.
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Thanks. I completely agree. It’s amazing the history and I think it’s also great that they are proud of it and display it without reservation. In fact in many places they display the bad history, like the bullet holes in the general post office, as a reminder of the recent and sad past.
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Best not to forget or they might repeat it.
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A glorious cathedral! We are so honored to have Pope here for a week.
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You really are in love with green Eire, aren’t you?
🙂
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Sure am. And it was my most recent trip so you will be stuck reading twenty more posts about it!
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Haha! Bracing myself. 😎
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I threw in one about animals there and there might be one or two from Arizona coming!
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