The Cathedrals of Ireland: A Visitor's Guide

A cathedral is not a size of church. It is the church that holds the bishop’s chair, the cathedra, and so it is the principal church of a diocese whatever it happens to look like. Some Irish cathedrals seat two thousand people. At least one would pass for a large parish church if you did not know.

Why several cities have two

The thing that surprises visitors most is the double cathedral. Armagh, Waterford, Kilkenny, Limerick, Cashel and others each have two churches called the cathedral, in two different denominations.

The reason is the Reformation. The medieval cathedrals, and the dioceses they belonged to, passed to the established church, which became the Church of Ireland. The Catholic dioceses continued to exist and to have bishops, without their medieval buildings. Through the eighteenth century and especially the nineteenth, after Catholic Emancipation in 1829 removed the legal obstacles and released the money, those dioceses built new cathedrals. That is why so many Catholic cathedrals in Ireland are Gothic Revival works of the 1830s to the 1900s, while the Church of Ireland cathedral in the same town is medieval.

Both are cathedrals in the proper sense. Each holds the chair of a real bishop of a real diocese, and the two dioceses share a name and cover roughly the same ground.

Co-cathedrals and pro-cathedrals

When two dioceses are united, both cathedrals often keep the title and the diocese has two seats. St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin is a different case again: a pro-cathedral serves as the cathedral without formally being one, and Dublin’s has done so since 1825.

Visiting

Cathedrals are the churches most likely in this directory to publish a full and current schedule, to have a webcam, and to keep a choir. They are also the most likely to be open all day. Several charge a tourist admission and remain free to anyone attending a service or coming to pray, which is the practice at St Patrick’s and Christ Church in Dublin among others.

Opening hours, admission and choral schedules are published by each cathedral itself. The links below go to each one’s page here, which carries its address, contact details, times and webcam where we hold them.