With a year to go before we mark the quincentennial, on October 31st, 2017, of Martin Luther
nailing his demands for reform to the door of All Saints’ Church in
Wittenberg, the time has surely come to settle a historical anomaly
unresolved for the past 200 years – the inherently “temporary” status of
St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin.
Built on the corner of Marlborough
Street and Elephant Lane (now Cathedral Street) – because Catholics
were not permitted under the Penal Laws to erect churches on any main
street in Ireland– it was designed by George Papworth
in the Greek Revival style and officially opened with a celebratory
Mass in November 1825, just four years before Catholic Emancipation.
It was designated as a “pro-cathedral” for the simple reason the Roman Catholic Church believed it had a prior claim to Christ Church
Cathedral, going back long before the Reformation, and lived in the
expectation that it would “get it back” at some stage, or else build a
great new cathedral that would put Christ Church in the ha’penny place.
Two cathedrals
After all, there was (and is) something quite
bizarre about the fact that Dublin’s two cathedrals were (and still are)
both in Protestant hands – Christ Church functioning as the
metropolitan cathedral and St Patrick’s as the national cathedral of the
Church of Ireland – while Catholics, then the vast majority of the city’s population, only had a pro-cathedral.
As Wikipedia succinctly explains, “even though Christ
Church has been in possession of the Anglican church for nearly 500
years, it is still viewed by the Roman Catholic Church as the primary
official Dublin cathedral, since it was so designated by the pope at the
request of the then Archbishop of Dublin, Saint Laurence O’Toole, in
the [late] 12th century.”
His successor centuries later, Archbishop Edward Byrne,
seemed to give up hope of “getting it back” when he paid the Pembroke
Estate £100,000 for Merrion Square Park in 1930 on the eve of the
Eucharistic Congress – and announced plans to build a gargantuan
Catholic cathedral there; it would have consumed the entire square,
dwarfing its Georgian terraces.
The Machiavellian John Charles McQuaid, who succeeded
Byrne as archbishop of Dublin, persisted with this controversial scheme
although – mercifully – nothing ever came of it. His successor, Dermot Ryan, effectively put an end to the grand projet not long after taking office in 1974 when he handed over the park to Dublin Corporation, which named it after him.
Temporary status
The Merrion Square plan was not the first for a new
Catholic cathedral in Dublin.
Earlier proposals had been put forward by
Liverpool-based architect and town planner Patrick Abercrombie
that it might be located to the west of O’Connell Street at the head of
a new boulevard replacing that stretch of Parnell Street.
But nothing
came of this idea.
The Pro-Cathedral retains its “temporary” status,
even though for all practical purposes it has been functioning as
Dublin’s Catholic cathedral since 1825. It also has all of the trappings
of a great cathedral, including the tombs of six archbishops.
I well remember going to Mass there on Christmas Day
in 1996 with my parents, siblings and our extended family.
It was the
Mozart Mass in C and, even if you didn’t believe in what was going on
around the altar, the music was so wonderful and the Palestrina Choir’s heavenly voices so uplifting that we all left feeling spiritually renewed for our Christmas dinner.
Architectural purists may complain that the
Pro-Cathedral’s Roman temple interior belies its Greek Revival exterior,
but there can be no doubt that it has a commanding physical presence
both inside and out.
It has also witnessed great occasions, such as
Daniel O’Connell’s remains lying-in-state after his death in 1847 and
Michael Collins’ funeral in 1922.
Inevitably, this being Ireland rather than Italy,
the original interior was “reordered” in the 1970s to comply with the
Second Vatican Council’s new liturgical requirements.
The elaborate high
altar and reredos made by Belfast-based sculptor Peter Turnerelli was scrapped, although the altar’s frontispiece was incorporated into its plainer replacement.
One would wish that Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid
Martin could simply designate St Mary’s as Dublin’s Catholic cathedral.
But if so, he would have to petition Pope Francis
to revoke the 12th-century papal designation of Christ Church as the
metropolitan cathedral.
Both of them are reasonable men and must see the
sense of making this long overdue move.