St Finnbarre's

In 607 AD St Finbarre (Blond Hair) came down the River Lee and built his church on a rock in the great Marsh.

Cork City grew up around that church. At one time Cork was like Venice with water ways in-between everybody’s houses, but over time they built bridges and covered the water over,

so Cork is actually still built over the marsh.

In Gaelic ‘corcaigh’ means swamp. )Pronounced Kierik Moor acccording to Michael who we meet later on)

A medieval cathedral was on the site but was damaged during the Siege of Cork in 1689 -90 when the nearby (and I do mean nearby, I think less than 100 yards away)

Elizabeth Fort fired cannonballs at the archers in the church towers who were shooting arrows at them.

In 1735 a small neo-classical church was built on the site and when the smaller church and the steeples were being demolished, a cannon ball was found in one of the steeples and it now hangs in the new cathedral as a kind of souvenir.

The new Cathedral is gothic revival in style and was started in 1862 by architect William Burges. It was consecrated in 1870 but the towers and spires were not finished until 1879.

There is also a copper and gold leaf statue of an angel donated by the architect above the pinnacle of the sanctuary roof called the Resurrection Angel with a superstition about it.

If it ever falls it will be the end of the world. You gotta love those old superstitions.

The building is all carved stone and detailed with working gargoyles and saints showing the way into each set of doors.
Inside this magnificent structure are mosaics and stained glass windows galore.

High, high ceilings and grand arches all stone and carved wood.

Maureen took one side of the cathedral and I took the other. After wandering around for about thirty minutes and gawking and taking many pictures, I went and picked up a little pamphlet about the cathedral. I then read about the cannon ball and enquired to Cliff, a gentleman who volunteers to inform tourists of these little tidbits, where it might be.

He asked where I was from and when I said Alberta, he broke into song "Think I'll go home to Alberta".

He had a pretty nice voice and I told him so. He motioned me to follow him down the side aisle and we would up at a piano where he sang" I don't have a wooden heart" the high ceilings are made for song and his voice, even though he was singing softly, was lovely. Then he told me about the cannonball and showed it to me . It was just within steps of the piano.

I found Maureen who had been taking even more pictures than me and we wandered around together for awhile. Then we chatted with Mark, another volunteer, and Cliffe who told us more stories of Cork and the cathedral.

There were Carved monkeys and goats and horses with arrows through their eyes. Quite gruesome those old time stoneworkers. Working gargoyles, how fun.

It makes you wonder how they could build something that would last for one hundred and thirty years, with the tools that they had way back then. What they built does need repairs yes, but nowadays we build things that get torn down within thirty of forty years.We kept them until past closing and finally left being very impressed and glad we decided to walk up the hill and see St Finbarres, although it really wasn't that long of a walk.

We found out that Elizabeth castle, just next door, was now used as a police station.

The Irish have so many saints that we were not familiar with and we had just met another ones very impressive legacy.

Even though it was sunny it was getting late and it was a little chilly.

and we were thirsty so we went back down the hill in search of refreshment.