Qualla: Kildare Cathedral

Kildare Cathedral: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. For centuries Kildare ran a small experiment in Irish church government: the abbess ruled, the bishop reported to her. From the time Saint Brigid arrived here around 480 AD until well into the medieval period, the cathedral at Kildare maintained a double community of women and men - and the abbess held authority over the bishop. The arrangement was unique in Ireland and barely paralleled elsewhere in Christendom. Brigid arrived just thirty-five years after Saint Patrick had settled in Armagh, and the church she founded was built on what is likely the site of a pre-Christian shrine to the goddess Brigid - the same name. The perpetual flame that burned in the cathedral grounds may have been continuous from pagan times until Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries.

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

Kildare Cathedral: Burned, Rebuilt, Burned Again

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Markiemcg1, CC BY-SA 4.0. Between 835 and 998, the cathedral was devastated approximately sixteen times. Vikings raided it. Local clans raided it. Disease and famine made monasteries tempting targets. By the time the Norman Ralph of Bristol became Bishop of Kildare in 1223, the original church was effecti...

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Image: Markiemcg1 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kildare Cathedral: Demise, Then Resurrection

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. After the 16th-century Reformation, the cathedral fell into disrepair. The Irish Confederate Wars of the 17th century left it ruined. By 1649 it was derelict. A partial rebuild followed in 1686, but by 1875 the building was barely standing. The Victorian architect George Edmund S...

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

Kildare Cathedral: The Sheelagh-na-gig and the Round Tower

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Colin Park, CC BY-SA 2.0. Inside the cathedral are features that startle: an altar-tomb effigy of Bishop Walter Wellesley, who died in 1539, an example of 16th-century Irish sculpture; oak choir stalls carved with acorns and oak leaves; a stone baptismal font from the medieval period; and, unusually for a...

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Image: Colin Park | CC BY-SA 2.0