St Colman's Cathedral - Cobh, Munster, Ireland - Victorian Style Architecture on Waymarking.com

The Cathedral Church of St Colman, usually known as Cobh Cathedral, sometimes as Queenstown Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Cobh, Ireland. It is the cathedral church of the Diocese of Cloyne. It overlooks Cork harbour from a prominent position. Construction began in 1868 and was not completed until over half a century later due to increases in costs and revisions of the original plans. With the steeple being 91.4 metres tall, the cathedral is the tallest church in Ireland. It used to be the second-tallest, only behind St John's Cathedral in Limerick which was 94 metres tall, but newer measurements have shown that St John's Cathedral is 81 metres tall and is the 4th tallest church in Ireland.

The building of the superstructure began in 1869 but when the contractors had taken the external walls to an average of 12 ft. Bishop Keane advised that he preferred a more elaborate design. Consequently, with the exception of the ground plan, none of the original plans were followed. These extra works increased by many thousands of cubic feet of stone the quantity already provided for and substantially increased the cost. Bishop Keane died in January 1874. His successor, Bishop John McCarthy, took the project almost to completion, but it fell to Bishop Robert Browne to consecrate the cathedral in 1919.

The architects were Edward Welby Pugin and George Ashlin; construction began in 1868. When Pugin died in 1875, Ashlin took on the services of a Dublin architect, Thomas Aloysius Coleman, to assist him in the completion of the project. The clerk of works was Charles Guilfoyle Doran, who supervised the project until his death in 1909, when the cathedral was within sight of being completed.

The cathedral was consecrated on 24 August 1919 by the Right Reverend Robert Browne, Bishop of Cloyne, in the presence of three of Ireland's archbishops Michael Logue, John Harty and Thomas Gilmartin.

As is Catholic practice, each year on the anniversary day of the Consecration, candles are lit before the twelve crosses on the nave pillars which mark the places where the walls were anointed with Sacred Chrism in the course of the 1919 consecration liturgy.

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Public/Private: Public Tours Available?: no Year Built: 1868 Web Address: [Web Link]

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