20.01.2026
Christ Church Lecture Series on Conserved Stained Glass
To mark the successful completion of conservation work on the stained glass in the clerestory on the south side of the nave of Christ Church in Dublin, the cathedral is hosting a series of four free lunchtime lectures on the Tuesdays of February 2026 at 1.10pm entitled ‘Clear stories of stained glass: Restoring the clerestory windows and their diocesan arms’ to which all are warmly welcome to attend.
The lectures will range from the modern–day conservation work on the cathedral, back to the restoration of the cathedral by George Edmund Street in 1871–8 and his choice of stained glass firms. The windows, which display a range of the arms of the dioceses in Ireland also offer an opportunity to look at the origins and developments that have taken place to these extraordinarily long lasting, nine–centuries–old, ecclesiastical boundaries.
The first lecture (Tuesday 3 February) will look at the processes involved in conserving the cathedral in the 2020s and will be given by the surveyor of the fabric, Frank Keohane, a chartered building surveyor and accomplished architectural historian in his own right, who has written not only Irish period houses: A conservation guidance manual (2016), but the Pevsner guide to Cork: City and county (2020). The following lecture (Tuesday 10 February) will be given by the Revd Dr Adrian Empey, former principal of the then Church of Ireland Theological College and cathedral precentor (2001–8) who will explore the dioceses of the Irish church. A prolific medieval historian specialising in Anglo–Norman settlement and the parochial system, publications have included The proctors’ accounts for the parish church of St Werburgh, Dublin, 1481–1627 (2009) and Gowran, Co. Kilkenny, 1190–1610: Custom and conflict in a baronial town (2015) and he is currently editing the fourteenth–century ‘Red Book of Ossory’ for the Irish Manuscripts Commission.
The third lecture (Tuesday 17 February) addresses George Edmund Street’s choice of stained glass manufacturers during the 1871–8 restoration, and will be delivered by art historian, Dr Caroline McGee, who has published widely on Irish religious material culture and, until recently, was project lead for the Atlantic Philanthropies Archive Project with the Digital Repository of Ireland at the Royal Irish Academy, as well as a Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Histories and Humanities at Trinity College Dublin (2020–3). The final lecture (Tuesday 24 February) will be given by Dr Stuart Kinsella, who will examine a number of little explored aspects of Street’s 1870s restoration. The cathedral’s research advisor for over two decades, his doctorate was an architectural history of the cathedral, and publications have included studies on the cathedral’s architecture, archives, monuments and musicians, as well as the woodcuts in John Derricke, The Image of Irelande (1581).
The colour illustration is reproduced courtesy of the Irish Architectural Archive (IAA 2002/33), and is of a decorative scheme proposed, probably in the late–19th–century, for the cathedral nave by the decorative firm, Sibthorpe of Molesworth Street, which features the stained glass in the clerestory.
The lectures take place in the chapter house building upstairs in the music or Henry Roe room, and is at present only accessible by stairs. Thanks are particularly due to the Friends of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin for their generous support of the lecture series and to the dean, CEO and director of music for allowing the use of the space. The lectures follow in a long line of lunchtime series running since 1997, as well as a memorial series to former dean’s verger, Joe Coady (1987–2003), and a much older annual St Stephen’s day lectures begun by cathedral architect, Sir Thomas Drew, which ran from 1891 until at least the 1960s. For further information, email Stuart Kinsella at archives@christchurch.ie.
You can download a PDF of the lecture poster here.