Qualla: Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral

Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit pl:Wikipedysta:A., CC BY 2.5. On the south spire stands an angel with a golden trumpet, watching over Cork city. The local belief is that when the angel raises its second trumpet to its lips and blows, the world will end. The architect William Burges almost certainly intended no such thing - he was illustrating the Book of Revelation, not predicting it - but the city has chosen to enjoy the story anyway. Cork, after all, is a city that has always preferred the version with the better punchline. When vandals broke the trumpets off in 1999, the cathedral made sure the restoration was a civic event. The world, for now, gets to keep going.

Image: pl:Wikipedysta:A. | CC BY 2.5

Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral: Got Cork!

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Randy Storey, CC BY 2.0. In February 1863, a thirty-five-year-old Victorian architect named William Burges opened the post and wrote two words in his diary: "Got Cork!" He had just won the competition to design the first new cathedral built in the British Isles since Sir Christopher Wren's St Paul's. He ...

Image: Randy Storey | CC BY 2.0

Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral: Holy Island

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Own Work, Public domain. Christians have prayed on this patch of ground for fourteen centuries. The site sits on what was once an inlet in the Great Marsh of Munster - Corcach Mor na Mumhan, the name from which the city takes its own. Around 600 AD, Finbarr, the hermit-monk of Gougane Barra in the wester...

Image: Own Work | Public domain

Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral: Burges in stone and glass

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NateBergin, CC BY 4.0. Burges treated Saint Fin Barre's as a complete artistic universe. He designed not only the building but the mosaic floor, the altar, the pulpit, the bishop's throne, the stained glass schemes, the carved tympanum showing the Resurrection, the dozens of biblical figures flanking t...

Image: NateBergin | CC BY 4.0

Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral: The angel and the trumpet

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Plasmoid, CC BY 2.5. High on the south side stands a gilded angel holding two trumpets. It is the resurrection angel from the Book of Revelation, awaiting the moment to blow the seventh trumpet that signals the end of days. Cork takes a quiet pride in being one of the few cities to have an officially...

Image: Plasmoid | CC BY 2.5

Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral: What rings in Cork

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zairon, CC BY 4.0. Listen on a Sunday morning and you will hear a ring of thirteen bells, the heaviest cast in Gloucester in 1751 by Abel Rudhall and the lightest added only in 2008. The northwestern tower holds twelve bells in a diatonic ring, plus a sharp second bell tuned for an additional eight...

Image: Zairon | CC BY 4.0