St. Patrick's Cathedral or Skibbereen Cathedral in

Skibbereen Skibbereen (; ) is a town in County Cork, Ireland. It is located in West Cork West Cork ( ga, Iarthar Chorcaí) is a tourist region and municipal district in County Cork, Ireland. As a municipal district, West Cork falls within the administr ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, is

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

in the

Diocese of Cork and Ross The Diocese of Cork and Ross ( ga, Deoise Chorcaí agus Rosa) is a Roman Catholic diocese in southern Ireland, one of six suffragan dioceses in the ecclesiastical province of Cashel and Emly. The cathedral church of the diocese is Cathedral o ...

. It was the seat of the former Diocese of Ross, but lost cathedral status when the see was merged with the

Diocese of Cork The Diocese of Cork was established in the seventh century. The diocese of Cork was one of the twenty-four dioceses established at the Synod of Rathbreasail on an ancient bishopric founded by Saint Finbarr in the sixth-century. On 30 July 1326, P ...

in 1958.

Architecture

The church was designed by architect Michael Augustine O'Riordan of Doneraile in the

neoclassical style Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The pr ...

. The tympanum of the façade is topped by a belfry. The interior is also neoclassical, but has an uneven appearance due to tunneling in

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building withi ...

s. The Tabernacle had an altarpiece of the Irish painter Samuel Forde, now preserved in the church of St. Barrahane in

Castlehaven Castlehaven () is a civil parish in County Cork, Ireland. It is located approximately 75 km south west of Cork City on the coast. The civil parish includes the town of Castletownshend and also contains the hamlets of Rineen and Tragumna. T ...

. The foundation stone for the present structure was laid in 1825, intended as a parish church in the Diocese of Cloyne and Ross. The original building was completed in 1826. The episcopal see was transferred to the parish under Bishop

Michael O'Hea Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian and ...

, and his successor, William Fitzgerald, carried out major improvements in the early 1880s. Additional renovations were made in 1950 and 2005.

References

External links

Parishes of Skibbereen & Rath and The Islands official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Skibbereen Roman Catholic churches in County Cork Buildings and structures in Skibbereen Roman Catholic churches completed in 1826 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Ireland Roman Catholic Diocese of Cork and Ross 19th-century churches in the Republic of Ireland

Architecture

See also

References

External links