Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

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Christ Church Cathedral (exterior)

Christ Church Cathedral (The Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity) in Dublin is the elder of the city's two mediæval cathedrals, the other being St. Patrick's. It has been the seat of the archbishop of Dublin (initially Roman Catholic, then Church of Ireland) since mediæval times.

The cathedral was built in 1038 by King Sitric Silkenbeard, the Viking King of Dublin. The church was built on the high ground overlooking the Viking settlement of Wood Quay. The cathedral was the location of the coronation of Lambert Simnel in 1487 as 'King Edward VI' a boy pretender who sought unsuccessfully to depose Henry VII of England.

In the seventeenth century, both parliament and the law courts met in buildings erected alongside Christ Church. King James II himself presided over a state opening of parliament in that location. However, parliament and the law courts both moved elsewhere; the law courts to the newly built Four Courts and parliament to Chichester House in Hoggen Green (now College Green).

Christ Church Cathedral (interior)

The cat and the rat

The cathedral was extensively renovated in Victorian times. While the renovation preserved the seriously decayed structure from collapse, it remains difficult, as a result, to tell which parts of the interior are genuinely mediæval and which parts are Victorian pastiche. Photographs taken from the exterior show the dramatic nature of the rebuilding done by the Victorians.

The Cathedral famously purported contains the tomb of Strongbow, a mediæval Welsh peer and warlord who came to Ireland at the request of King Diarmuid MacMorrough and whose arrival marked the beginning of English involvement in Ireland. As with other aspects of Christ Church, the tomb in the nave is not actually Strongbow's: the original tomb having been destroyed centuries ago, an unconnected mediæval tomb was moved soon afterwards from a church in Drogheda to Christ Church, placed on the site of Strongbow's tomb and identified as Strongbow's. In the middle ages - oaths were sworn on the tomb of Strongbow, an occurrence clearly stated in the Christ Church Deeds.

The cathedral does genuinely contain the largest cathedral crypt in Britain or Ireland. Having been recently renovated it is now open for visitors. It contains various monuments, a carved statue that until the late eighteenth century stood outside the Tholsel (Dublin's mediæval city hall which no longer exists) and a set of candlesticks which were used when the cathedral last operated (for a very short time) under the Roman rite, when the Catholic King James II, having fled England in 1690, came to Ireland to fight for his throne and attended High Mass in the temporarily catholicised Christ Church.

[edit] Bells

Christ Church Cathedral is known to have had at least one ringing bell since 1038. By 1440 there were known to be three great bells in the tower, however in 1603 an accidental gunpowder explosion in one of the nearby quays damaged the tower and caused the bells to crack. The effects of this blast also damaged the tower nearby of St Audoen's church.

In 1670, six new bells were cast for the tower from cannon metal. These were augmented to eight in 1738 and then to twelve in 1878.

The most recent augmentation was in 1999 when an additional seven bells were added to the ring, giving a grand total of 19 bells. This is a world record for bells rung this way. Although this does not produce a diatonic scale of 19 notes, it does uniquely provide a choice of combinations: three different 12-bell peals (in the keys of B, C# and F#) as well as 14 and 16 bell peals. At the time of the augmentation, this was only the second 16 full circle bell peal in the world - St Martin's church in Birmingham being the first.