St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh

The Roman Catholic Cathedral Church of St Patrick on Cathedral Road, Armagh, is the seat of the Archdiocese of Armagh, a Grade A listed Gothic Revival cathedral built between 1840 and 1904.

Overview

Archbishop William Crolly secured the site from the Earl of Dartrey. Thomas J. Duff of Newry designed a cruciform Perpendicular Gothic church; the foundation stone was blessed and laid on St Patrick’s Day 1840. Work halted during the Great Famine, and Crolly was buried in the unfinished cathedral in 1849. When building resumed in 1854 Duff was dead; J. J. McCarthy completed the church in fourteenth-century Decorated Gothic, substituting two west towers with spires about 64 metres high for Duff’s three lower towers. The Stone Database for Northern Ireland describes a French Gothic Revival church of nave, clerestory, aisles and transepts, with a multi-recessed west entrance, a large gable tracery window and broached stone spires, in regular-coursed Armagh limestone with Dungannon sandstone. The cathedral was consecrated in 1904.

Northern Ireland listing HB15/20/020 (Grade A) is noted here only; it is not an English or Cadw list entry. The cathedral remains the parish church of Armagh and is open daily for worship and visits.

Further Information

• Archdiocese of Armagh: History of the Cathedral
• Armagh Parish
• Wikipedia: St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh (Roman Catholic)
• Stone Database NI