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United Dioceses of Dublin & Glendalough

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13.05.2015

Architectural Exhibition Marking 150th Anniversary of Restoration of St Patrick’s Cathedral Opens

A new exhibition marking the 150th anniversary of the restoration of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, by Benjamin Lee Guinness, opened yesterday evening in the Irish Architectural Archive. The exhibition, which documents some of the cathedral’s architectural history, was officially opened by the Hon Rory Guinness, the great great great grandson of Benjamin Lee Guinness.

St PAtrick's Exhibition
St PAtrick's Exhibition

Launching the exhibition Rory Guinness expressed some trepidation at being surrounded by architects given that his great great great grandfather had refused to have any architects involved in his restoration project. He also highlighted the special connection that exists between the Guinness family and St Patrick’s Cathedral.

He added that Benjamin Lee Guinness was an extraordinary man who was a politician, a brewer and a philanthropist. He recalled what his own father had said to him quoting Arthur Guinness: “A porter brewer buys none but the best as none else will answer”. Mr Guinness suggested that this was also the case in Benjamin Lee Guinness’s restoration of St Patrick’s Cathedral as his work had lasted 150 years.

“Heaven knows what he would have thought of tonight,” Mr Guinness said. “I think he thought it [the restoration] was a labour of love in gratitude to God and out of a feeling of honour to his native city.”

Dr Michael Webb, chairman of the Irish Architectural Archive and St Patrick’s Cathedral board member, outlined the huge collection of drawings and photographs held by the archive. He thanked the Guinness family, the board of the Cathedral and Ecclesiastical Insurance who all provided funds for the exhibition. A service of thanksgiving to mark the 150th anniversary of the restoration will take place in the cathedral on June 7.

St Patrick's Exhibition
St Patrick's Exhibition

St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, is the larger of Dublin’s two Church of Ireland cathedrals. With origins as far back as the ninth century and building elements dating from the thirteenth century onwards, it has a complex history, not the least part of which is the evolution of its architectural form. This exhibition documents some of that story. Drawing on the collections of the Cathedral itself, of St Patrick’s Deanery, the Representative Church Body Library and the Irish Architectural Archive, the exhibition looks in particular at the major efforts to restore the Cathedral in the nineteenth century.

In 1820 a guide book to Dublin described St Patrick’s as ‘an interesting pile’ but complained that its site was ‘particularly injudicious’. It was surrounded by ‘disgusting huts’ and was on the point of ‘tottering into irretrievable ruin’ (Thomas Cromwell, Excursions Through Ireland, London, 1820). And indeed, the fabric of the Cathedral was, by the first decades of the nineteenth century, in very poor shape. The north transept was in ruins, walled off from the nave and exposed to the elements. The walls of the nave itself were bulging and inclined while the roof had to be propped with timbers. Only the tower, with its steeple of 1749, seemed ‘likely to remain entire for any long period to come’. Little wonder that there were serious proposals to demolish the whole lot and start again.

Restoration rather than demolition won out. Some structural works in the 1820s stabilised the building and two decades later the architect Richard Cromwell Carpenter made designs for an extensive restoration of the Cathedral. First displayed at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1846, these drawings are included in the current exhibition. Although some work was carried out during the next few years, Carpenter died before Benjamin Lee Guinness’s gift of £20,000 to the Dean and Chapter in 1860 made possible a new and lavish phase of restoration. Effectively abandoning Carpenter’s designs, Guinness insisted that his own views should be paramount and that no architect or church expert should be involved. He ensured that Timothy Murphy & Son, builders, were contracted to carry out the work and the restoration was supervised by Patrick J. Murphy, the builder’s son. This and the sheer scale of the interventions resulted in much contemporary criticism but the Cathedral as it stands today, internally and externally, is substantially as Guinness and Murphy left it.

The Irish Architectural Archive would like to thank the following for their help with this exhibition: Liz D’Arcy, Ecclesiastical Insurance, the Hon. Rory Guinness, Scott Hayes, Jennifer Hickey, David Lane, Dr Michael O’Neill, the RCB, Dr Raymond Refaussé, Dean Victor Stacey, and Gavan Woods.

St Patrick's Exhibition
St Patrick's Exhibition

A series of lectures will accompany the exhibition. Details can be found on

www.iarc.ie. The Architecture Gallery is open to the public from 10 am to 5 pm, Tuesdays to Fridays.

Photo captions:

Top – Gavan Woods, administrator of St Patrick’s Cathedral; Dr Michael O’Neill, architectural historian; Dr Michael Webb, chairman of the Irish Architectural Archive; the Hon Rory Guinness; and David Lane, MD of Ecclesiastical Insurance.

Middle – Canon Paul Houston examines some of the displays in the St Patrick’s Cathedral Architectural Exhibition taking place in the Irish Architectural Archive.

Bottom – The Hon Rory Guinness; the Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, the Very Revd Victor Stacey; and Dr Michael Webb, chairman of the Irish Architectural Archive.

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