St. Michan's Church is a

Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland ( ga, Eaglais na hÉireann, ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Kirk o Airlann, ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the secon ...

church located in Church Street,

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

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 ...

. The first Christian chapel on this site dated from 1095, and operated as a

Catholic 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 ...

church until the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

. The current church dates from 1686, and has served

parishioners in Dublin for more than 300 years. The church is known for its vaults, which contain a number of 'mummified' remains.

Building

Built on the site of an early Norse

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

from 1095, the current structure dates largely from a reconstruction undertaken under William Robinson in 1686, but is still the only parish

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

on the north side of the Liffey surviving from a

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

foundation. While the exterior of the church may be unimpressive, the interior boasts some fine woodwork, and an organ (dated 1724) on which Handel is said to have composed his ''

Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach ...

''.

Vaults

Interments

The

vault Vault may refer to: * Jumping, the act of propelling oneself upwards Architecture * Vault (architecture), an arched form above an enclosed space * Bank vault, a reinforced room or compartment where valuables are stored * Burial vault (enclosure ...

s of St. Michan's uniquely contain many mummified remains. The walls in the vaults contain

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

, which has kept the air dry, creating ideal conditions for preservation. Among the preserved remains are the 400-year-old body of a nun, a six-and-a-half-foot man popularly believed to have been a crusader, a body with its feet and right hand severed, and the

Sheares brothers The Sheares Brothers, Henry (1753–98), and John (1766–1798) were Irish lawyers and republicans. After witnessing revolutionary events in Paris, in 1793 they joined the Society of United Irishmen for whom they organised in Cork and in Dubl ...

—Henry and John—who took part in the

1798 rebellion The Irish Rebellion of 1798 ( ga, Éirí Amach 1798; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ''The Hurries'') was a major uprising against British rule in Ireland. The main organising force was the Society of United Irishmen, a Irish republicanism, ...

. The various holders of the title

Earl of Leitrim Earl of Leitrim was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. History The earldom of Leitrim was created in 1795 for Robert Clements, 1st Viscount Leitrim. He had already been created Baron Leitrim, of Manor Hamilton in the County of Leitrim, in 1 ...

were also interred here.

Damage

A number of crypts in the St. Michan's vaults were damaged by vandals in 1996 and again in early 2019. Following the 2019 incident, Archdeacon David Pierpoint told the media that several mummified remains were desecrated by vandals, including the remains of a 400-year-old nun, and the decapitation of the 800-year-old 'crusader'.

Access

The church vaults are open to tours on Saturdays, and seasonally on some weekdays, receiving approximately 27,000 visitors during 2018. Following the vandalism event in early 2019, these tours were temporarily cancelled, recommencing by early July 2019.

Organ

The organ, built circa 1940 by Evans and Barr of Belfast, is housed within the eighteenth-century organ case constructed by John Baptiste Cuvillie between 1723–1725. The three manual pneumatic console employs modern compass and playing dimensions yet has been squeezed into the space originally occupied by much narrower keyboards. The Swell division features a slider soundboard, with separate pneumatic underaction; the Great and Choir divisions are served by sliderless ventil chests. Stopaction is pneumatic throughout. In front of the gallery is the ''Organ Trophy'', a carved wooden piece which depicts 17 musical instruments and was installed in 1724. It is widely considered that George Frideric Handel practised in advance of the first performance of

on this organ.

Gallery

File:St Michans Dublin.jpg, Spire File:St Michan’s churchyard.jpg, Churchyard

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Michan's Church, Dublin Church of Ireland churches in Dublin (city)