This brief résumé is given solely from the fact that it is a commentary on many references which are made elsewhere in this volume, and not in any sense as an assumption that these facts are not otherwise readily accessible to the general reader.
It shows, moreover, that monkery was cultivated in Ireland as zealously, and to as great an extent, as in any other nation in Europe, and in addition had, for centuries, supplied many brethren to other establishments throughout the known world, notably to seminaries at Rome, and in Spain, Portugal, and the Low Countries.
At the time of the Revolution the number of “regulars” in Ireland was above two thousand, and these all in addition to the regular ecclesiastical establishment and its clergy.
The mere attempt to define and describe the cathedrals of Ireland as they exist to-day, or as they existed at the disestablishment, in a work such as this, would be fated to disaster from the very first lines.
No brief explanation, even, as to why their numbers were so great, their size so attenuated, or their architectural qualifications so minor, would be satisfactory, and for that reason they must, as a class, be dismissed with a word.
The minor county cathedrals of Ireland are almost unknown to all but the historian and archæologist.
The larger and more important examples—as in Dublin, Kilkenny, and Cork—are possessed of considerably more than a local repute, though none are architecturally pretentious or great, as compared with the cathedral churches of England or the Continent.
The cathedrals of Ireland are in many instances commonplace little countryside churches, insignificant and inaccessible, and many of them, in fact, of no great age or beauty; but they claim, rightly enough, along with many more ambitious edifices elsewhere, the proud distinction of once having been cathedral churches.
The largest and most splendid is St. Patrick’s at Dublin. Kilkenny, which next approaches it, falls considerably short of it in size; while St. Patrick itself takes a very low rank indeed as compared with England’s noble minsters.
The cruciform plan, with two westerly towers and a huge central spire,—the typical English type,—never fully developed in Ireland. It is stated, indeed, that no such example exists in any church edifice in Ireland, though of cruciform churches with a central tower alone there are examples at Armagh, Dublin (Christchurch), Cashel, Kildare, Kilkenny, and Killaloe.