History
Artefacts
What to see
St Flannan's site is shared with an even older building - the 12th century St Flannan's Oratory, estimated to have been built circa 1100. The cathedral is surrounded by the graveyard, a very peaceful place of rest. The earliest marked graves are those of Bishop Roan 1692 and Elisabeth Brown 1719
Key Features
Key Features
The current cathedral dates to circa 1200, it has a cruciform plan, with a chancel, nave, two transepts and crossing.
There are no aisles. Thirteenth-century carved decoration can be seen in the corbels in the chancel and crossing, the capitals to the double lancet in St Paul’s Chapel and the arch of the great east window. The most significant alteration to the exterior of the church was the raising of the tower in 1899 by James Franklin Fuller. It introduced height, and a style that was contemporary with the original cathedral though not found in the west of Ireland at that time. It accommodated a new chime of bells cast in Dublin.
The interior has been remodelled several times since the early thirteenth century. Most of the changes have been superseded, and the decoration and ordering of the chancel we see today is mid to late nineteenth century. The exposed timber chancel roof was constructed in 1852-3 under Joseph Welland, while the carved oak furniture, designed by James Franklin Fuller, was installed in 1886-87.
The cathedral has become the repository for a number of medieval artefacts which are displayed in the nave. The Romanesque portal was probably moved to its present position in the early eighteenth century. The thirteenth-century font was re-erected by Bishop Mant in the 1820s. In the early twentieth century Thorgrim’s cross fragment (or Ogham Stone) was discovered in the boundary wall of the cathedral and erected in the nave, to be joined in the 1930s by the high cross which Bishop Mant had brought from Kilfenora over a century earlier. These artefacts were conserved in 1999.
Windows
The earliest surviving stained glass in the cathedral was commissioned in 1865 from William Warrington & Sons, a London firm that pioneered the nineteenth-century revival of medieval stained glass.
It is found in the two most important windows; the great east window and the west lancet. The three lancets in the east window depicted the twelve apostles and St. Paul. In the early twentieth century the central figure of St Paul was removed and replaced by Christ the Good Shepherd. St. Paul’s glass was moved to the south transept – St. Paul’s Chapel. The west lancet depicts Faith, Hope and Charity and was commissioned by Captain Gilbert, a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo.
It may have been the architect James Franklin Fuller who in 1897 advised the cathedral to commission glass from the newly established stained glass company of Watson & Sons, Youghal, Co Waterford. Bishop Frederick Wynne commissioned stained glass for the two lancets on the north wall of the nave depicting St Peter, and Christ the Good Shepherd holding a lamb. Thirty-nine years later Watson & Co produced a window of similar design depicting St Flannan for the lancet on the south nave wall. There is also a 1924 Watson & Co window in the chancel south wall by the pulpit depicting the parable of the Good Samaritan, this window reflects the style of the early twentieth century being quite art nouveau in colour and design.
Windows
Medieval Context
Medieval Context
St Flannan’s Cathedral is built on a site whose ecclesiastical roots lie in the late 10th century with the building of a church or indeed a great monastery.
This church, the surviving St Flannan’s Oratory, probably built in the early twelfth-century, and the subsequent two cathedral churches, built in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the second of which survives today, were all connected with the Ua Briain dynasty, one of the great Irish dynasties of this period. Brian Boróime ( c.941–1014), King of Munster and high king of Ireland, established the status and power of the Ua Briain, which was consolidated by Muirchertach Ua Briain (c.1050–1119) also King of Munster and high king of Ireland, a patron of Irish church reform, and a politician with extensive external contacts. Their fortified residence was located on the hill adjacent to the ecclesiastical site. The present cathedral building has been in continuous use as a place of worship since it was first built.
St Flannan’s Cathedral and its site is of exceptional historical significance for the close associations with the Ua Briain over 200 years, for the survival of built forms that offer an immediate connection with that history, and for 1,000 years of continuous ecclesiastical activity.
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