Tuesday was busy. We had 3 stops scheduled. The morning was cold and the wind was brisk as we headed to Christ Church Cathedral. You may wonder why I started with a weather report. The answer is that I had carefully timed the day’s three activities so we could spend a reasonable amount of time at each place before going on to the next. However, I forgot to check the opening time at Christ Church Cathedral. We were there, as dictated by my schedule, at 9 AM, but the church doors don’t open until 9:30. Did I mention that it was cold and windy? We spent the extra time looking at the exterior grounds. There was once a monastery on the grounds and there is still a place where you can see the foundation of an ancient building.
After a while, a guide came out of the church—before the doors were officially open—and was nice enough to explain the layout of the monastery and where the old buildings were located and he explained some of the history of Christ Church Cathedral. He went back inside and a few minutes later, another guide came out and talked to us. No crowds, no canned talk, just a lot of history. Every place we have been on this trip, people have been happy to talk to us about Irish history. Our half hour wait went by very quickly.
The Christ Church Cathedral in its present form was begun in 1172 on the site of a Viking church. It was around that time that the Angol-Normans overthrew the last Viking king of Dublin. Winners destroying one place of worship to build another is something we have seen many times before. The original crypt of the new church is extensive and easily accessible. Among other things, it now houses the gift shop.
It is not surprising that a church this old has had problems. In 1562, the stone roof fell in and damaged one of the walls. Most of that damage was repaired, but there is still a place inside where the wall leans in. Over time the church became run down and in in the 1870s, a major restoration project was funded by Henry Roe of the Roe whiskey distillery family. There are some who say that the restoration was a virtual rebuild because both interior and exterior features were changed.
Visiting Christ Church Cathedral now, 150 years after the restoration, everything we saw seemed as if it had always belonged. There are beautiful stained glass windows, but those date from the restoration. The floor is tiled with Victorian reproductions of the original medieval tiles, some of which have been preserved. The space is open and well-lighted. There were few other visitors so we were able to wander around and look at everything. I hope the pictures on the pictures page do justice to what we saw. [I’ll post more pictures when we get home.]
I may have already mentioned the brisk wind. It was not only brisk, it was also in our faces no matter which way we turned on our way to our next stop, the Guinness Storehouse. The Guinness Brewery was established in 1759 and has become iconic in Ireland and around the world. Guinness is now part of Irish culture and the Guinness family has been a philanthropic force for many years. Our walk took us about 20 minutes and we arrived early for our timed slot at 10:45. I thought we were going to have to wait outside in the cold and wind, but we were waved in as soon as we arrived.
When you enter, you are given a ticket for a free Guinness. When we got up to the Gravity Bar on the 7th floor, I got my Guinness, but Patricia could not be persuaded. She tried the tiniest taste of the foam on my beer, but her expression said “I’m not taking a second sip.” The Gravity bar is glass enclosed and has a 360-degree view of Dublin and the surrounding country. We could see the Wicklow Mountains, where the Guinness water come from, better than we could for most of our bus tour on Sunday.
We ate at one of the restaurants inside the storehouse. It may not surprise you to learn that we both had the Guinness beef and vegetable stew.
The invasive, swirly, cold wind managed to remain in our faces as we walked from the storehouse to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which took about 25 minutes. Once again, we were a few minutes early for our 2 o’clock time slot, and once again we were waved in early. We had visited St. Patrick’s in 2018 and were looking forward to seeing it again.
The St. Patrick’s church was founded in 1191 and major construction took place between 1220 and 1260. You will notice that these times are close to the construction of Christ Church Cathedral. When I tell you that the two churches are only a 5 or 6-minute walk apart, you may wonder why two such important churches are so close together. I do. As with Christ Church, St. Patrick’s has evolved and been modified over the centuries. And, like Christ Church, it underwent major restoration. Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness (there is the Guinness name again) funded and directed many aspects of the restoration which cost, in today’s dollars, around 25 million.
I have noticed that in Andalucia many towns claim to be the birthplace of flamenco. In Ireland, many places seem to claim that St. Patrick did baptisms there. The site of St. Patrick’s church is said to be where he carried out early baptisms in the 5th century. So are the Hill of Tara and the Hill of Cashel. In any case, the church is an important location connected to St. Patrick, even though he was in the area more than 500 years before the church was built.
The restoration of St. Patrick’s Cathedral was, I think, at least as successful as the restoration of Christ Church Cathedral. The tiled floor is beautiful. One contrast between the two churches is that St. Patrick’s has many more monuments in the form of statues than does Christ Church. I should mention here that both churches are still active places of worship.
We took a short tour of the interior with a volunteer docent. She was so excited about all the information she had to share that she often had to stop and say “Wait, I forgot to tell you about …”. She did a good job of imparting small, relevant pieces of history about the architecture, monuments, and people connected with the church. What was supposed to be a 40-minute tour lasted 60 minutes. I took pictures of the stained glass, but like the stained glass at Christ Church, these windows date back only to the 1860s restoration time.
By the time we began our walk back to the hotel, the wind had died down and we were almost warm when we got back.
I have posted some pictures to the Dublin pictures page.
