Dublin’s oldest north-side church

Saint Michan’s Church, Church Street, Dublin (Photograph: Bernd Biege, About.com)

Patrick Comerford

I celebrated the Easter Eucharist on Sunday morning (12 April 2009) with the small, inner city congregation of Saint Michan’s on Church Street, Dublin. This church is tucked away behind the courts and the fruit and vegetable market, and is the oldest parish church on Dublin’s north side.

This is a living inner city church, with a faithful congregation and a fascinating history, and interesting literary and artistic connections.

Saint Michan’s – the first church built on the north side of Dublin – was first built in 1095 and was dedicated to a Danish saint.

The church was rebuilt in 1686, using the foundations of the old Viking church, and much of the interior dates from the period immediately after this rebuilding.

The baptismal font dates from about 1700, and those who were baptised here include the statesman Edmund Burke.

The pulpit, which is now at the back of the church, and which I did not preach from on Easter morning, was commissioned in 1724. About the same time, the organ – which was played on Easter morning – was built between 1723 and 1725 by Jean-Baptiste Cuvillié. The organ trophy, a wood caring depicting 17 musical instruments, was carved by Henry or John Houghton, and is dated 1724. Local lore says that that Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759) practised on this organ for his first performance of his Messiah in the Temple Bar area of Dublin in 1742.

Appropriately, our final, Post-Communion Hymn on this organ on Sunday morning was Thine be the glory, using a tune adapted from a chorus in Händel’s Judas Maccabaeus, written in 1746.

The church also has a penitent’s desk dating from 1724 – used for public confessions by those accused of bad behaviour. This was not used on Sunday morning.

At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, Saint Michan’s appears to have been a hub of revolutionary activity. The parishioners at the time included the brothers Henry and John Sheares, two leaders of the United Irishmen in Dublin in 1798 who were executed for their part in the revolution. Robert Emmet, who was executed five years later for his part in the 1803 Revolution, is said to be buried in an unmarked grave in the churchyard.

When the church was renovated in 1825, much of the 17th century building was preserved. However, the altar I celebrated is only 100 years old, dating from 1909. The altar frontal is the original altar front from the Chapel Royal in Dublin Castle. It was removed from the Chapel Royal in 1922, and was later rescued from a market stall in the Liberties, restored and presented to Saint Michan’s.

Saint Michan’s is best known to schoolchildren and tourists for the mummies in the five long burial vaults underneath the church. The bodies there have barely decomposed because of the dry atmosphere created by the church’s limestone walls, leaving the preserved bodies, complete with skin and strands of hair. The bodies are said to include a 400-year-old nun, a crusader and the Sheares brothers. There is a body with its hands and feet mysteriously severed. Some of the Earls of Kenmare and the notorious Earl of Leitrim are also buried here.

Bram Stoker is reputed to have visited the vaults, where some family members were buried, and to have started developing some of his ideas for Dracula. In more recent years, Saint Michan’s mummies featured on the National Geographic television series, The Mummy Roadshow (2003).

Two events in Dublin next Thursday evening (16 April) are linked to the artistic and literary life associated with Saint Michan’s. The Dublin Händel Festival, from today (13 April) until next Sunday (19 April), marks the 250th anniversary of the death of Händel. The programme includes a special performance of Händel’s Messiah by Christ Church Cathedral Choir and the Orchestra of St Cecilia in Christ Church Cathedral, directed by Judy Martin, on 16 April.

Meanwhile, in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, there will be an atmospheric evening of readings from Bram Stoker’s Dracula and music with Bill Golding, Laurence Foster, Crux Ensemble and visiting organist Simon Weale – that event is hosted jointly with Dublin City Council as part of the Dublin: One city, one book programme.

Today, Saint Michan’s is part of the Christ Church Cathedral group of parishes, with the Dean, the Very Revd Dermot Dunne, as incumbent, and the Archdeacon, the Ven David Pierpoint, as vicar. Church services are held at 10 a.m. on the second and fourth Sunday of each month, and the churchy is open to visitors this summer from Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 12.45, and from 2 p.m. to 4.30 p.m., and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 12.45 p.m.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, Dublin, and a Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.