Cathedrals Travel Guide

The area west of Dublin Castle is the site of the original Viking settlement and represents the most ancient part of the city: the old Tholsel, or town hall, used to stand here, as did the original Four Courts. Today, this historic place is remarkable for its strange combination of urban desolation and renewal (generous tax concessions are ensuring that there's plenty of new building), and the massive, over-restored grey bulks of not one but two cathedrals . Both date originally from the twelfth century: Christchurch from 1172 and St Patrick's, designed to supersede it, from 1190. The reason why both have survived appears to be that Christchurch stood inside the city walls, and St Patrick's outside. Both cathedrals remain dedicated to the Church of Ireland, their great forms once a symbol of the dominance of the British, but now manifestations of what is very much a minority religious denomination.