ST CANICE’S CATHEDRAL
KILKENNY, IRELAND CHURCH OF IRELAND
PAUL SCOTT
This website is about St Canice’s Cathedral in Kilkenny, Ireland. I have never visited Kilkenny, so none of the photographs which appear here are mine. The window photos are taken from the excellent Gloine resource [Gl]. Many of the remaining photos come from Trip Advisor [TA]. A few photos are from Google Street View [GSV], and others from Cathedral sources [SC]. I might also mention Doc Brown [DB]. Further details of these resources can be found in the Conclusion. A few individual photos are acknowledged directly in the text. I am grateful to all those who have made their photographs publicly available, so that others can enjoy this beautiful Cathedral.
The following set of links is designed to assist with navigation around the Cathedral. A click / tap on a link will take you there!
SATELLITE VIEW GSV
Looking at the satellite view of the Cathedral, we see that St Canice’s has the traditional cruciform shape, with its axis close to geographical east – west, and its sanctuary at the ‘eastern’ end. On this site we use liturgical directions with the sanctuary pointing exactly to the East (with a capital E), and the other directions accordingly. This convention will cause no problems here.
St Canice’s Cathedral is sited on a flattish raised area, almost rectangular in shape, and just north of the city centre. The property is bounded on three sides by Coach Road and Church Lane, and separated from these by a high stone wall. The Cathedral has no public car parking space. To access the Cathedral we either walk up Coach Road from Dean Street, or climb up the St Canice’s Steps from Vicar Street.
Features of the Cathedral include a large square tower at the crossing, a main entry on the South side of the nave, covered nave aisles, a spectacular round tower at the end of the South transept, and various chapels to the East of the transepts.
After our approach to the Cathedral, we will begin our exploration by climbing the round tower, and then following around the Cathedral in an anticlockwise direction, finishing up at the South entry.
Older Plan
Updated Plan
PLAN DTT
The plan of St Canice’s seems to be quite straightforward, but there seems to have been some renaming of the spaces East of the transepts, as well as restricted public access. So the lower plan is probably more accurate, although there may have been further changes since! In fact a recent photograph will show that the outline extension of the Gash Chapel has been added.
We shall explore the Cathedral, following the plan from left to right, and commenting on various items as we proceed. [Top Plan Credit: Daniel Tietzsch-Tyler]
HISTORY
Years Built: 1202 – 1285
Address: The Close, Coach Road, Kilkenny City R95 V63H, Ireland
St Canice’s Cathedral, also known as Kilkenny Cathedral, is a cathedral of the Church of Ireland in Kilkenny city, Ireland. It is in the ecclesiastical province of Dublin. Previously the cathedral of the Diocese of Ossory, it is now one of six cathedrals in the United Dioceses of Cashel and Ossory.
The present building dates from the 13th century and is the second longest cathedral in Ireland, after St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. Beside the Cathedral stands a 100 ft (30 m) 9th-century round tower. St Canice’s tower is an example of a well-preserved 9th-century ‘Celtic Christian’ round tower. It is dedicated to St Canice. It is one of only three such medieval round towers in Ireland that can still be climbed to the top, the other two being Kildare Round Tower in Kildare Town and Devenish Round Tower in County Fermanagh.
The Cathedral stands on the site of a Celtic Christian monastery said to have been founded in the sixth century by St Canice as a daughter house of Aghaboe Abbey. The Synod of Rathbreasail in 1111, which first divided Ireland into territorial dioceses, included both Aghaboe and Kilkenny in the Diocese of Ossory, with the episcopal see at Kilkenny, the capital of the Kingdom of Ossory. Thus the abbey church became the Cathedral. The erroneous belief that the see was originally at Aghaboe and later transferred to Kilkenny is traced by John Bradley to a 16th-century misinterpretation of a 13th-century property transfer.
In the 16th century, the Irish church followed the English church in breaking with Rome. The substantial majority of the population, however, remained faithful Roman Catholics, despite the political and economic advantages of membership in the state church. Since St Canice’s Cathedral was now a Protestant place of worship, Roman Catholics were obliged to worship elsewhere. St Mary’s Cathedral in Kilkenny was later built for the Roman Catholic diocese.
The Cathedral contains some 16th-century monuments. The architectural style of the Cathedral is Early Gothic and is built of limestone. It is richly endowed with many stained glass windows, including the east window which is a replica of the original 13th-century window. The Cathedral contains some of the finest 16th-century monuments in Ireland.
Kilkenny was the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Ossory and St Canice’s Cathedral stands on a site which has experienced Christian worship since the 6th century. The name of ‘Kilkenny’ itself retains the anglicised version of the Irish Cill Chainnigh, which translates as ‘Church of Cainneach’, or ‘Canice’.
The earliest church on the site is presumed to have been made of wood, to be replaced in the later medieval period by a Romanesque-style stone church. This was in turn replaced by the current imposing medieval Cathedral. A few yards from the present south transept stands an imposing 9th-century round tower, 100 ft high.
Accessible only by a steep set of internal ladders, it may once have been both a watchtower and a refuge. The summit gives a clear view of Kilkenny and the countryside around it. The hill on which the cathedral stands is believed to be the centre of the first major settlement at Kilkenny, and the round tower suggests an early ecclesiastical foundation.
Much less is known about the early secular structures, but the area around the cathedral, called Irishtown, is the oldest part of the present city.
There is no mention of Kilkenny in the lives of Cainnech of Aghaboe, Ciarán of Saighir or any of the early annals of Ireland suggesting that in those times it was not of great importance. The Annals of the Four Masters recorded entries for Cill Chainnigh in 1085 (‘Ceall-Cainnigh was for the most part burned’) and again in 1114 (‘... Cill-Cainnigh ... were all burned this year’).
The present building was begun in the 13th century, when it was at the western end of Kilkenny, and shows some similarities to St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, both dating from the same period and completed by the end of the 13th century.
In the Red Book of Ossory, fifteen pages dating from about 1324 contain sixty Latin verses, or Cantilenae, written by Richard de Ledrede (Ledred), Bishop of Ossory, best known for his connection with trials for heresy and witchcraft. As stated elsewhere in the Red Book, Ledred wrote these verses ‘for the Vicars Choral of Kilkenny Cathedral, his priests and clerics, to be sung on great festivals and other occasions, that their throats and mouths, sanctified to God, might not be polluted with theatrical, indecent, and secular songs’.
The Cathedral was ‘restored’ between 1844 and 1867 without the removal of any important medieval features.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Canice%27s_Cathedral
