EMPTY CATHEDRALS

Evening Star, Issue 22099, 20 April 1935, Page 25

EMPTY CATHEDRALS

IRISH CHURCH PROBLEM RESTORATION TO CATHOLICS DUBLIN PROPOSAL Now that the spirit of compromise is abroad a movement has been started in Dublin which will be followed with interest by the English-speaking world. An effort is to be made to persuade the Church of Ireland authorities to restore to the Roman Catholic community one of the two medieval cathedrals in its possession (writes I). J. Quinn, in the ‘ Sydney Morning Herald ’). For this purpose a committee of influential persons lias been appointed to open up friendly negotiations. The committee hoped to enlist the active co-operation of Mr George Bernard Shaw, who is a native of Dublin, but in this it was disappointed.'

In a characteristic letter Mr Shaw wrote: “ I cannot join the committee, as it happens to be my personal opinion that all medieval cathedrals should be catholic in the sens© of belonging equally to all human beings, Christian, Mohammendan, Hindu, Buddhist, Parsee, Sinn Fein, and what not, wdio desire a suitable place for contemplation and the making of their souls. But I remember very well how on returning to Dublin after an absence of 30 years 1 went to see St. Patrick’s, and found it ns ugly as if the devil had built it; and on the same day went into Christ Church and found it absolutely empty, not even a verger or a charwoman in charge. I thought how sensible it would be for the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to offer to exchange this unused temple, in which one still can feel the presence of God, for the St. Patrick structure, which could be deconsecrated and demolished, and its site let lucratively for commercial purposes. “ My own family and antecedents,” Mr Shaw continued, “ are ultra-Protes-tant, and I am a bit to the left of Protestantism myself; but when there are two cathedrals available within a stone’s throw of one another it seems rather dog-in-the-mangerish to deny the use of one of them to the Catholic majority in whose hands no visitor could at any hour find it absolutely deserted as I did.” RIVAL CHURCHES. Mr Shaw’s finding the cathedrals deserted is a common experience of visitors. Two .years -ago the present writer entered St. Patrick’s while a service was being conducted, and apart from the officiating clergy, acolytes, choir, and organist the lay public was represented by a woman and the verger. There never was a time, of course, when either of the cathedrals did not far exceed the needs of the small body of Irish Church adherents, who could conveniently worship within its walls, and since the passing of “ Castle ” government the congregations have dwindled to vanishing point. The two cathedrals, so restful today in their common isolation, were once formidable rivals and adversaries. Christ Church, the older, is a Danish foundation, dating from 1033. Archbishop O’Toole, the first Irishman to occupy the See of Dublin (his predecessors being Danes), enlarged the cathedral, which Strongbow, fresh from the conquest of Leinster for King Henry 11., remodelled in accordance with Norman notions. It is the fashion to, date all Ireland’s troubles from Strongbow. Yet he had the makings of a good Irishman. He liked the country, married an Irish wife, and left his bones in Christ Church. FREEDOM OUTSIDE THE WALL. St. Patrick’s was built by Archbishop Comyn, an Englishman, in 1190. There was no necessity for a second edifice, as Christ Church was considered sufficiently large for all needs; but lying as it did within the city, Christ Church was subject to the authority of the Viceroy (who was sometimes a layman) and the mayor (who was always a layman). Moreover, it was the home of a monastic chapter which often ran counter to the episcopal wishes. &t. Patrick’s, lying outside the city wall, was free of these troublesome factors. The site is ill-adapted for a church, being only 7ft above the waters of a subterranean stream, which, after heavy rains, frequently causes flooding; but the sanctity attaching to the spot outweighed every other consideration. St. Patrick was believed to have called forth a well thereabout, and an ancient Celtic church was removed to make way for the new building, “far excelling Christ Church in size and splendour.” In 1219 King Henry made St. Patrick’s a regular cathedral, equal in every respect to Christ Church, save that its head was not a bishop but a dean. In the days of the Home Rule struggle the charge was sometimes made —by Irishmen—against the Roman Catholic bishops that they garrisoned Ireland for the British Government. Curiously enough, we are told that in early days the English kings, after trying other expedients, took to sending over episcopal viceroys, and that it was the conjunction of the supremo authority in Church and State in the same hands that brought the religious element into such prominence in the life of the capital. When Dublin was but a small place, half a mile long by a qiiarter of a mile wide, it possessed in the city and environs two cathedrals, nearly a dozen abbeys, and about a score of churches, and the total population was not more than 10,000. Dublin to-day has not changed in this regard—it is still a city of churches and of churchgoers. TOLL OF THE YEARS.

Tempests and fire took heavy toll of both cathedrals in the course of the centuries. In the fourteenth century the steeple of St. Patrick’s was blown down, and twice fire ravaged the building. In the sixteenth century the stone roof fell in. The next century fmjnd the Lady Chapel and the north transept in ruins. Cromwellian and Jacobite soldiers stabled their horses in the aisles. When the roof and the south side of Christ Church Cathedral fell in, there were grave heart-search-ings among the chapter, for the disaster followed soon after their acceptance of the reformed doctrines. The restoration of the two cathedrals in the nineteenth century was made possible by the munificence of two private citizens —Sir Benjamin Guinness providing ,•£160,000 for St. Patrick’s, and Mr Henry Roe £166,000 for Christ Church. Like Westminster Abbey, St. Patrick’s contains many statues, monuments, and tablets to people who attained some celebrity in their day and are now forgotten. The graves most eagerly sought after by visitors are those of Dean Swift and his mysterious Stella. The Dean wrote his own epitaph: “ Here lies the body of Jonathan Swift, for 30 years clean of this cathedral, where savage indignation can no longer gnaw his heart. Go traveller and imitate, if you can. one who played a man’s part in defence of Liberty."-

TIPPLING IN THE CRYPT. In the sixteenth century the pillared caverns of the crypt of Christ Church ivere leased to tenants as shops, stores, and taverns. The wine merchants of a neighbouring street found the crypt a useful annexe. As a distich of the time records, it was Spirits above and spirits below, Spirits divine and spirits of wine. The underground shebeens became a scandal, and repeated warnings having failed to abate the nuisance, the Lord Lieutenant and Council in 1678 ordered that the dean and chapter “ doe use their best endeavours for removing the taverns, tippling houses, and tobacco shops located in the vaults and cellars, to the great annoyance of the said enurch.” It was symptomatic of the times that while these revels were going on in the crypt, the archbishop in the church aoove was complaining of open disrespect at the communion table and the general wearing of hats during service. In. October, IGS9, James IT.’s troops seized the cathedral, which was used as a Roman Catholic church until the battle of the Boyne destroyed that monarch’s hopes. The -tabernacle and candlesticks used when the King attended mass arc now preserved in a chapel in the crypt. DAME MARY IN THE STOCKS. Among other relics in the crypt is a wooden stocks which stood in the cathedral churchyard till 1821, when that method of punishing delinquents fell into disuse. One day the present writer overheard the verger explaining to an American and his wife the working of the machine. He was a garrulous fellow with a story to tell about everything. Having placed a leg in one of the four holes, he proceeded; “Some years ago I was showing Mr Hughes, the Prime Minister of Australia, and Mrs Hughes over ■ the crypt, and nothing would do Mrs Hughes but she must get into the stocks to see what it was like.' I suggested that she put her feet in. the two centre holes, which, as you see, are a little larger than the end ones. But no, Mrs Hughes would not. She placed one leg in the small hole and the other in the larger one. Immediately I dropped the guillotine into place she gave a startled cry.” “ Oh,” exclaimed the American woman, “ was she hurt? What did she say?” , “ Her left leg was certainly pinched,” said the verger, “ but she took it very well, though she did shake a finger, at me and threatened to tell her people in Melbourne of the indignity I had put upon her.” Those stocks, I imagine, will serve to keep Dame Mary’s memory green in Dublin for many a day to come.