St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin
Saint Patrick's Cathedral () in Dublin, Ireland, founded in 1191, is the National Cathedral of the Church of Ireland. With its spire, St. Patrick's is the tallest church (not Cathedral) in Ireland and the largest. Christ Church Cathedral, also a Church of Ireland cathedral in Dublin, is designated as the local Cathedral of the diocese of Dublin and Glendalough.
Architecture of Ireland
During the Victorian period, many new statues were erected in Ireland, particularly in Dublin, Belfast and Cork. These included several rather elegant statues of figures such as Queen Victoria, Daniel O'Connell and Henry Grattan.
One of Ireland's finest Victorian buildings is the cathedral dedicated to St Mary at Killarney; it is built in a Neo-Gothic style known as 'Lancet-arched Gothic', so called because the cathedral has many long, slender lancet-shaped windows with acutely pointed arches. The architect was August Pugin, one of the greatest of Victorian architects. The cathedral—begun in 1842, funded by public subscription, and interrupted by the horrors of famine—was finally dedicated in 1855. The design is typical of Irish Gothic; it blends Corinthian and Doric orders and is decorated with Sicilian marble and Caen stone. The cathedral is crowned by a spire of . Pugin's work was eminently suited to Ireland. A convert to Roman Catholicism, he believed Gothic architecture to be the only style suitable for religious worship and attacked the earlier Neoclassical architecture as pagan and almost blasphemous. This philosophy embraced by the church in Ireland at the time helped to popularise the Gothic style in Victorian Ireland.