Not every city has a cathedral, but Dublin has the unusual luxery of 2 cathedrals.

Christ Church is the oldest one, dating from ca 1030.

Obviously tensions arose when in 1192 the archbishop of Dublin elevated an old parish church to cathedral level and named it St Patrick's Cathedral. The issue was settled in 1300.

During the English Reformation the cathedral was converted to an Anglican Church and today St Patrick's functions as National Cathedral of the Church of Ireland.

 

A major reconstruction in the 1860's left little of the medieval traits and turned the interior into Victorian splendor.

Some of the many features you will find inside the cathedral are the intricate and colorful mozaic floor, dean Jonathan Swift's death mask and epitaph, the elaborately carved wooden culprit and of course the 15th century Door of Reconciliation.

 

We visited the Cathedral in June 2018.