Qualla: Cathedral of St Eunan and St Columba

Cathedral of St Eunan and St Columba: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Previnnk, CC BY-SA 3.0. Townspeople carried the building up to the hill in buckets. The sandstone came from Mountcharles quarries on the south coast of Donegal, was shipped around the coast and up the River Swilly to Letterkenny port, and from there the people of the town carried it - bucket by bucket - to the ridge above Castle Street where the new cathedral was rising. Construction took ten years, from 1890 to 1900, and cost £300,000 in 1900 money, the equivalent of around £50 million today. It made St Eunan's the most expensive church ever built in Ireland. Walk up the hill into Letterkenny today and the spire is still the first thing you see, rising 240 feet above a town that everyone in Donegal simply calls "the Cathedral Town".

Image: Previnnk | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cathedral of St Eunan and St Columba: The Youngest Bishop in the World

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The cathedral was commissioned by Patrick O'Donnell, who became Bishop of Raphoe in 1888 at the age of thirty-two - making him the youngest bishop in the world at that moment. He had grown up in west Donegal speaking Irish, studied for the priesthood at Maynooth, and returned hom...

Image: Public domain

Cathedral of St Eunan and St Columba: Eunan and Columba

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dieglop, CC BY-SA 4.0. The cathedral takes its dedication from two of the most consequential figures in early Irish Christianity. Columba - *Colmcille* in Irish - was the sixth-century Donegal-born monk who founded the monastery at Iona, off the Scottish coast, that became the engine of Celtic Christia...

Image: Dieglop | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cathedral of St Eunan and St Columba: Willie Pearse's Sculptures

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit w:User:Qwertyuiopasdfgh vfen, Public domain. Look closely at some of the sculptures inside St Eunan's and you are looking at the work of a man who would be executed by firing squad sixteen years after the cathedral opened. Willie Pearse - sculptor, theatre director, and younger brother of Patrick Pearse - carved several of ...

Image: w:User:Qwertyuiopasdfgh vfen | Public domain

Cathedral of St Eunan and St Columba: Twelve Bells, Twelve Saints

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Angr assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. The bell chamber holds twelve bells, each cast with the name of a saint of *Tír Conail* - the old Gaelic kingdom that covered most of modern Donegal. Dallan, Conal, Fiacre, Adomnán, Baithen, Barron, Nelis, Mura, Fionán, Davog, Cartha, Caitríona, Taobhóg, Cróna, Ríanach, Ernan, As...

Image: No machine-readable author provided. Angr assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

Cathedral of St Eunan and St Columba: Light from Munich

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Niseau, CC0. The thirteen stained-glass windows of the sanctuary and Lady Chapel were made by the Mayer firm of Munich, then one of the most prolific ecclesiastical stained-glass producers in Europe. They depict scenes from the life of Jesus. The marble pulpit by Pearse Brothers, the Amici-pa...

Image: Niseau | CC0