Qualla: Cloyne Cathedral

Cloyne Cathedral: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. Carved into the floor of the nave at Cloyne Cathedral is a horseshoe. It marks the grave of a girl named Mary Smyth, who died in 1675, and the horseshoe is the symbol of her father's trade - a smith, or farrier. But the locals had a different story about that mark on the floor. They called it the devil's footprint, and they said Satan had left it there one black night before fleeing the cathedral. The cathedral itself sits at a crossroads of those kinds of stories: a 6th-century monastic foundation, a 13th-century stone shell, an Irish philosopher who gave his name to a Californian city, and a round tower across the road struck by lightning in 1749.

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Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cloyne Cathedral: Colman's Meadow

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. St Colman of Cloyne founded a monastery here in 560 AD. The land was donated by Coirpre Cromm mac Crimthainn, the King of Munster - the kind of royal grant that anchored the early Irish church to particular places and particular kings. The name Cloyne means 'meadow of the caves,'...

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Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cloyne Cathedral: The Devil's Footprint

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JohnArmagh, Public domain. During the 1641 Irish Rebellion, the cathedral was damaged and then repaired the following year. The 17th-century records preserve some unexpectedly human moments. There is Mary Smyth's grave in the nave, marked with the horseshoe that local legend would eventually reassign to th...

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Image: JohnArmagh | Public domain

Cloyne Cathedral: A Hurricane on Shrove Tuesday

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JohnArmagh, Public domain. On Shrove Tuesday 1781, a violent storm struck Cloyne. The north side of the churchyard wall was blown over. Eighty-eight panes of glass shattered in the cathedral. A team of slaters spent eleven days repairing the roof, using 1,200 slates in the process. The numbers come from th...

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Image: JohnArmagh | Public domain

Cloyne Cathedral: Berkeley and Brinkley

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JohnArmagh, Public domain. Two of Cloyne's bishops became internationally famous for reasons having nothing to do with church administration. George Berkeley, the Anglo-Irish philosopher whose work on immaterialism shaped Western thought for centuries, served as Bishop of Cloyne from 1734 to 1753. The Univ...

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Image: JohnArmagh | Public domain

Cloyne Cathedral: The Round Tower Across the Road

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonjobaker, CC BY-SA 4.0. Outside the cathedral, just across the road, stands Cloyne Round Tower - built in the 10th or 11th century, used as a bell tower for the monks and then again from 1683. In 1749 it was struck by lightning, damage that's still visible in the upper masonry. The combination of cathed...

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Image: Jonjobaker | CC BY-SA 4.0