October 8, 2018
Armagh is the site of two cathedrals, both on hills and both named after Saint Patrick. Considered the spiritual Capital of Ireland for 1500 years it is the seat of both Church of Ireland and Catholic archbishops.
The Metropolitan Cathedral of St Patrick, (Church of Ireland) sits on the hill in the city where it gets its name – Ard Mhacha – the Height of Macha. Macha, a legendary pagan tribal princess, is also linked with the nearby Emain Macha (The Navan Fort), a major ritual site occupied from late Neolithic/early Bronze Age time regarded as having been the ancient royal center of Iron Age Ulster.
Bear with me as this gets terribly confusing, as all Irish politics are: The church was historically the center of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, having been transferred to the Protestant Church of Ireland by the British government during the Irish Reformation. Following the Henrician Reformation in Ireland, the cathedral became increasingly associated with the then Established Church and has been definitively in Anglican hands since the reign of Elizabeth I. A Roman Catholic cathedral was built on a neighboring hill in the nineteenth century. Cordial relations exist between both cathedrals, which I understand are improving with every new administration.
The church itself has been destroyed and rebuilt 17 times. The edifice was renovated and restored at the start of the sixteenth century after a devastating fire in 1511. It was substantially restored between 1834 and 1840 by architect Lewis Nockalls Cottingham.
Catholic Saint Patricks
The seat of the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh is Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh. He is also the primate of All Ireland. It was built in various phases between 1840 and 1904 to serve as the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Armagh, the original Medieval Cathedral of St. Patrick having been transferred to the Protestant Church of Ireland at the time of the Irish Reformation, (as mentioned above).
The most amazing feature of the church are the mosaics on both the floors and the walls. Originally the walls were painted murals, but due to the damp climate, they deteriorated after a few years.
The material is Italian pottery in small cubes with glass cubes for the gilt portions The sections were put together in two workshops in London and were glued, face down, on strips of paper. These were then applied to a fresh coating of special cement on the walls similar to hanging wallpaper.
The tile murals were done by Italian painter, Oreste Amici (1872–1930), who had been trained at the Institute of Fine Arts in Rome, The ceilings are painted in oil.
The organ at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church
PARTING SHOTS
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In Northern Ireland, you will hear the saying it isn’t about religion, it is about land. And this is true, but the reason it is about land is that it is about religion. In 1695 England forced the Penal laws upon Ireland. In a nutshell, all land in Ireland – IF you were a Protestant, was handed down to the first born son. However, if you were a Catholic, your land had to be divided evenly amongst all of your sons. It didn’t take but a very few generations before Protestants held large tracks of land, and Catholics were subsistence farming on their own tiny patches of land. These laws were not rescinded until 1920.