Christ Church Cathedral, more formally The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity (Irish: Ardeaglais Theampall Chríost), is the cathedral of the United Dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough and the cathedral of the ecclesiastical province of the United Provinces of Dublin and Cashel in the (Anglican) Church of Ireland. It is situated in Dublin, Ireland, and is the elder of the capital city's two medieval cathedrals, the other being St Patrick's Cathedral.
The cathedral was founded in the early 11th century under the Viking king Sitric Silkenbeard. It was rebuilt in stone in the late 12th century under the Norman potentate Strongbow, and considerably enlarged in the early 13th century, using Somerset stones and craftsmen. A partial collapse in the 16th century left it in poor shape and the building was extensively renovated and rebuilt in the late 19th century, giving it the form it has today, including the tower, flying buttresses, and distinctive covered footbridge.
Overview and history
Overview
In law, and in fact, it has been the cathedral of only the Church of Ireland's Archbishop of Dublin since the Irish Reformation. Though nominally claiming Christ Church as his cathedral, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin used St Mary's in Marlborough Street in Dublin as his pro-cathedral (acting cathedral). In November 2025, however, Pope Leo XIV designated St Mary's as Dublin's official Catholic cathedral.
Christ Church Cathedral is located in the former heart of medieval Dublin, next to Wood Quay at the end of Lord Edward Street. However, a major dual carriageway building scheme around it separated it from the original medieval street pattern which once surrounded it, with its original architectural context (at the centre of a maze of small buildings and streets) lost due to road-building and the demolition of the older residential quarter at Wood Quay. As a result, the cathedral now appears dominant in isolation behind new civil offices along the quays, out of its original medieval context. The cathedral is used as the setting for filming from time to time.
First cathedral
The cathedral was founded probably sometime after 1028 when King Sitric Silkenbeard, the Hiberno-Norse king of Dublin made a pilgrimage to Rome. The first bishop of this new Dublin diocese was Dúnán or Donat, and the diocese was at that time a small island of land surrounded by the much larger Diocese of Glendalough, and was for a time answerable to Canterbury rather than to the Irish Church hierarchy. The church was built on the high ground overlooking the Viking settlement at Wood Quay and Sitric gave the "lands of Baldoyle, Raheny and Portrane for its maintenance." Of the four old Celtic Christian churches reputed to have existed around Dublin, only one, dedicated to St. Martin of Tours, lay within the walls of the Viking city, and so Christ Church was one of just two churches for the whole city.
The cathedral was originally staffed by secular clergy. The second Bishop of Dublin introduced the Benedictines. In 1163, Christ Church was converted to a priory of the Regular Order of Arrosian Canons (Reformed Augustinian Rule) by the second Archbishop of Dublin, later saint, Laurence O'Toole, who adhered to the rule himself; it was subsequently headed by an Augustinian prior, who ranked as the second ecclesiastical figure of the diocese until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1541, at which time the cathedral became a secular cathedral with a dean and chapter based on the constitution of neighbouring St Patrick's. This priory, the Priory of the Holy Trinity, became the wealthiest religious house in Ireland, holding over 10,000 acres (40 km2) of property in County Dublin alone, most notable of which were the three home farms held at Grangegorman, Glasnevin and Clonken or Clonkene, now known as Deansgrange.
Norman period
Henry II attended the Christmas service at the cathedral in 1171. According to the cathedral guidebook, this was the first time Henry received Holy Communion following the murder of Thomas Becket by Henry's knights in Canterbury in 1170.
In the 1180s, Strongbow and other Norman magnates helped to fund a complete rebuilding of Christ Church, initially a wooden building, in stone, comprising the construction of a choir, choir aisles and transepts, the crypt and chapels to St. Edmund and St. Mary and St. Lô.
A chapel to St Laurence O'Toole was added in the 13th century and much of the extant nave was built in the 1230s. Its design was inspired by the architecture of the English western school of Gothic, and its wrought stones – of a Somersetshire oolite from quarries in Dundry – were sculpted and laid by craftsmen from the same area.
In 1300 Richard de Ferings, Archbishop of Dublin arranged an agreement between the two cathedrals, the Pacis Compostio, which acknowledged both as cathedrals and made some provisions to accommodate their shared status (see below for more on this).
In the 1350s a major extension was undertaken by John de St Paul, Archbishop of Dublin, 1349–1362. By 1358, the nave of the cathedral was partly in use for secular purposes and a "long quire" was added, extending the old choir area by around 10 metres. St Paul also installed an organ. His works were destroyed by the major rebuilding project in the 1870s. He was buried under the high altar.
In 1480 the wealthy judge William Sutton bequeathed all his lands and silver to the cathedral.
The cathedral was the location of the purported coronation, in 1487, of Lambert Simnel, a boy pretender who sought unsuccessfully to depose Henry VII of England, as "King Edward VI".
The choir school was founded in 1493.
As part the dissolution of the Irish monasteries, King Henry VIII by Royal Warrant of 12 December 1539 abolished the Priory of the Holy Trinity. The Prior and Canons of Holy Trinity were transformed into secular clergy, to be known as the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church. So, Robert Paynswick or Penswick, alias Castell, Prior, and Richard Ball, Sub-Prior, became Dean and Precentor respectively, whilst Walter White, Seneschal and Precentor, became Chancellor and Vicar-Choral, and John Moss, Sub-Precentor [Succentor] and Sacristan, Treasurer and Vicar-Choral of the new foundation. Thus the last Augustinian Prior (Robert Paynswick) became the first Dean of Christ Church, though the process of conversion actually continued in 1540 and 1542, finishing with a Chapter of eight clergy.
Henry VIII's immediate successor, Edward VI, in 1547, provided funds for an increase in cathedral staffing and annual royal funding for the choir school.
King Edward VI formally suppressed St Patrick's Cathedral and, on 25 April 1547, its silver, jewels and ornaments were transferred to the dean and chapter of Christ Church. This episode ended with a late document of Queen Mary's reign, a deed dated 27 April 1558, comprising a release or receipt by Thomas Leverous, dean, and the chapter of St Patrick's, of the "goods, chattels, musical instruments, etc." belonging to that cathedral and which had been in the possession of the dean and chapter of Christ Church.
Queen Mary I, and later King James I, also increased Christ Church's endowment. Meanwhile, in 1551, divine service was sung for the first time in Ireland in English instead of Latin. In 1560, the Bible was first read in English.
Kingdom of Ireland
The foundations of the nave, resting in peat, slipped in 1562, bringing down the south wall and the arched stone roof (the north wall, which visibly leans, survived, and largely dates back to 1230). Partial repairs were carried out but much of the debris was simply levelled and new flooring was built over it until 1871. In 1620 the English-born judge Luke Gernon observed that Christchurch was in a better state of repair than St. Patrick's; he does not seem to have been overly impressed by either.
In the 17th 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 on the riverfront, and Parliament to Chichester House in Hoggen Green, into the building which is now The Bank of Ireland, College Green.
Like nearby St Patrick's, the building was in poor condition for much of the 19th century. After the building was declared unsafe and no longer fit for use, some limited works were carried out by Matthew Price (architect) between 1829 and 1831.
19th and 20th centuries
The cathedral and Synod Hall were extensively renovated and rebuilt from 1871 to 1878 by George Edmund Street, with the sponsorship of the whiskey distiller Henry Roe of Mount Anville. The renovations cost Roe in the region of £250,000. Wyse Jackson notes that Roe may have been trying to "outdo" Benjamin Lee Guinness the brewer, who some years earlier in 1864 had privately funded the restoration of nearby St Patrick's Cathedral.
This episode in the cathedral's history was recorded in an 1890 guidebook to Dublin, produced as part of the Thorough Guides series:
...Of that building, however, we know that a very large part had disappeared by the middle of the 16th century, and from then down to about 1830 neglect and injudicious repairs had done their worst. In 1830–34 more or less extensive restoration took place, but only to be followed by a further period of neglect, and at the time of the disestablishment of the Irish Church in 1869 things were at so low an ebb that it was seriously contemplated to hand over the building to the Roman Catholics. In 1871, however, Mr. H. Roe, the whisky distiller, came to the rescue and undertook the works pronounced necessary by the late Mr. Street, which were estimated to cost £16,000. From that sprung an outlay which eventually reached £185,000 for the cathedral, £15,000 for the adjoining synod-house, and £22,000 endowment, all provided by the same donor, who unhappily proved to have overtaxed his means.
The great 14th-century choir was demolished and a new eastern end was built over the original crypt. He built a new chapter house. The tower was rebuilt. The south nave arcade was rebuilt. The flying buttresses were added as a decorative feature. The north porch was removed. The baptistry was built in its place. Street built the adjacent Synod Hall, taking in the last remnant of St Michael and All Angels's Church, including the bell tower. The synod house is linked to the cathedral by Street's iconic covered footbridge. Roe spent over £230,000 at the time (over €26 million in 2006 terms). Further renovations were carried out, notably between 1980 and 1982.
Role
Christ Church is the centre of worship for the united dioceses and holds notable annual events such as the Citizenship Service. As the cathedral of the southern province of the Church of Ireland, it also hosts ordinations of priests and consecrations of bishops.
Architecture
Impact of the restoration
The extensive renovation in Victorian times preserved the seriously decayed structure from collapse, but it is now difficult to tell which parts of the interior are medieval and which parts are Victorian pastiche. Photographs of the exterior show the extent of the Victorian rebuilding: Archbishop de St Paul's 14th-century cathedral, in particular, the "long choir", was almost entirely destroyed. As a result, Christ Church is a mixture of surviving medieval and later church building.
Stonework
Patrick Wyse Jackson, curator of the Geological Museum in Trinity College, assessed the building in 1993 as part of his book "The Building Stones of Dublin: A Walking Guide" and made the following observations:
The present cathedral, which is noted for its crypts, was begun in 1172 by the Normans, whose stonemasons used locally quarried Calp Limestone from Lucan, and an imported oolitic limestone from Dundry Hill near Bristol, which they used around the doors and windows. The remains of the chapter house of the original priory are situated on the southern side of the cathedral site. Here the various rock types may be examined at close quarters using a hand lens.
A much wider array of stones were employed during the late-1800s restoration of the cathedral, as detailed by Wyse Jackson: