St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh: Seat of the Church of Ireland’s Archbishop
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Irish
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page8 sections
History
Early Christian origins
St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, in the United Kingdom, is a Church of Ireland cathedral and the seat of the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh. Its origins are traditionally linked to a church founded by Saint Patrick in AD 445, while the site is also associated with a fifth-century Irish stone monastery. Archaeological evidence indicates that the hilltop had previously served as a pagan sanctuary.
By the seventh century, the monastery had become the most important monastery and monastic school in northern Ireland. A settlement developed around it, and Armagh grew into the ecclesiastical capital of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland and the seat of its Catholic archbishop before the Reformation.
Medieval primacy and repeated rebuilding
Brian Boru, the medieval Irish high king, visited Armagh in 1004, acknowledged it as Ireland’s head cathedral, and gave it a large quantity of gold. After he was killed at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, he was buried at Armagh Cathedral. Armagh’s claim to primacy in Ireland received formal recognition at the Synod of Ráth Breasail in 1111.
The church was partially destroyed and rebuilt 17 times. A major fire damaged it in 1511, and Dean Eoghan McCawell directed renovation and restoration during his tenure from 1505 to 1549. Shortly after McCawell’s death, Lord Chancellor Thomas Cusack described the cathedral as “one of the fairest and best churches in Ireland.”
Reformation, conflict, and Anglican use
During the Reformation, the cathedral and its assets passed to the established Protestant Church of Ireland, the Anglican church established in Ireland after the Reformation. It has remained Anglican since the reign of Elizabeth I. In the nineteenth century, after Roman Catholic emancipation, a separate Roman Catholic cathedral dedicated to Saint Patrick was built on a neighboring hill.
By the end of the Nine Years’ War in 1603, Armagh lay in ruins. The town then came under English control and was settled by Protestants from Britain as part of the Plantation of Ulster. During the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Protestant settlers took refuge in the cathedral. After negotiations with those under siege, Catholic rebels occupied Armagh until May 1642.
Nineteenth-century rebuilding and later history
The cathedral was substantially rebuilt between 1834 and 1840 under Archbishop Lord John George Beresford and the architect Lewis Nockalls Cottingham. The present building retains the fabric of the medieval structure, although it was extensively restored. Later restorations changed the internal proportions of the medieval building more radically than Cottingham’s work had done.
Research by T. G. F. Patterson and Janet Myles in the late twentieth century identified Cottingham’s restoration as notably antiquarian for its period. The Choral Foundation, said to date from the Culdees, medieval Irish and Scottish religious communities associated with monastic and cathedral foundations, was later refounded as the Royal College of King Charles of Vicars Choral and Organist in Armagh Cathedral. It continues to function with 12 gentlemen lay vicars choral and 16 boy choristers.
St Patrick’s Cathedral is a Category A listed monument. In 2008, Maundy Money, money distributed by the British monarch in a Christian charitable ceremony during Holy Week, was given at the cathedral. A plaque in the south aisle commemorates the event.
Notable burials include Brian Boru; Saint Ethnea, who was baptized by Saint Patrick and died around AD 433; Marcus Gervais Beresford, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland from 1862; Charles Frederick D’Arcy, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland; Lord John Beresford, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland; and John Baptist Crozier, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, who was buried with his wife, Alice Isabella.
Remains
Medieval fabric and layout
The cathedral occupies a hilltop associated with Druim Saileach, translated as “Willow Ridge.” Its surviving fabric belongs to the medieval building, though extensive restoration has shaped its present form. The cathedral has a single nave, whose window tracery, the stone patterns forming the upper parts of windows, was carefully restored. The present font is a copy. The capitals, or upper sections, of the two westernmost nave pillars are medieval; they stand on either side of the internal porch of the West Door.
The Eastern Arm has a parapet, a low protective wall along the edge, containing numerous external gargoyle carvings. Some of these gargoyles have been repositioned. Cottingham intended to preserve the richly cusped West Door and its flanking canopied niches, but that proposal was overruled.
Carvings, sculpture, and commemorative features
The cathedral contains numerous Celtic and medieval carvings, as well as substantial eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sculpture. Works by Francis Leggatt Chantrey, Louis-François Roubiliac, John Michael Rysbrack, Carlo Marochetti, and other sculptors form part of its artistic remains. The south aisle contains the plaque commemorating the distribution of Maundy Money in 2008.
