Patrick Comerford
During our short weekend visit to Belfast, I visited or revisited a number of places of interest in the city, including Saint George’s Church on High Street and Saint Anne’s Cathedral on Donegall Street.
I have been in Saint Anne’s many times in the past, as a student in the 1980s, during General Synods, at ordinations in 2013, 2015 and 2016, and taking part in special services, and in advance of my ordination I had some of my papers signed on the cathedral steps in May 2000.
There has always been a warm welcome from the Deans of Belfast, including Samuel Crooks, Jack Shearer, Houston McKelvey, and John Mann, who brought me around the cathedral on a personal tour on one occasion.
Saint Anne’s is an unusual cathedral in the Church of Ireland, for it serves one city and two separate dioceses (Connor and Down and Dromore) which have their own cathedrals (in Lisburn, Downpatrick and Dromore), yet it is the seat of neither bishop, although they both have seats in the chancel.
Belfast received its first charter in 1613, but it remained a city without a cathedral for centuries. The Corporation Church, on the site of Saint George’s Church on High Street, was the main church until the 1770s, when it had fallen into disrepair.
The old church on High Street was demolished in 1774. The patron of the parish, Arthur Chichester (1739-1799), 5th Earl of Donegall and later Marquess of Donegall, was the dominant local landowner in Belfast. But, instead of rebuilding the church, he gave an expansive site for a new church on Donegall Street, a few hundred metres from Saint George’s. Building work began on 9 May 1774 and the church was completed 2½ years later. Lord Donegall’s wish to install bells was unfulfilled because the tower-cupola, the major feature of the west front, was unable to support their weight.
The new church was named Saint Anne’s after Lord Donegall’s first wife, Lady Anne Hamilton (1738-1780), daughter of James Hamilton, 5th Duke of Hamilton. Much of the ancient records, silver and other treasures of Saint George’s were moved to Saint Anne’s, while the bell and charity boards went to Clifton House, which opened in 1774. Saint Anne’s Church would later become Saint Anne’s Cathedral.
The Chichester pew was in a west gallery beneath the Snetzler organ presented by Lord Donegall in 1781. The organ was brought down into the redundant Chichester pew in 1886. A window in the east apse displayed the Chichester coat of arms until it was replaced by the Good Samaritan window in 1887.
The only remaining links with Lord Donegall in the cathedral today are the Sovereign’s Chair and Desk, presented in 1787, and now on display in the south aisle.
Saint Anne’s Church was designed in the classical style by the architect Francis Hiorne (1744-1789), who also designed Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, in 1777. Saint Anne’s Church was consecrated in 1776, and became the parish church of Belfast.
The first proposal for a cathedral in Belfast came from the Dean and Chapter of Connor in 1860. At the time, Connor and Down and Dromore were united as dioceses, ever since the saintly Jeremy Taylor was bishop after the Caroline Restoration in the 1660s. So the scheme was not as geographically difficult as it now appears.
After the proposal for a cathedral in Belfast was presented to the Diocesan Council by Bishop Thomas Welland, the project was taken up enthusiastically by Henry Stewart O’Hara when he became Rector of Belfast in 1894.
Sir Thomas Drew (1838-1910) was chosen as architect, and he was assisted by WH Lynn. The style chosen was Romanesque – characterised by semi-circular arches – and the building as designed in form of a basilica. The foundation stone was laid on 6 September 1899 by the Countess of Shaftesbury in the presence of the Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin.
The old parish church of Saint Anne continued in use while the new cathedral was being built around it. By 1903, the tower of Saint Anne’s Church had been dismantled and the church was no longer visible from the street.
The old church was not demolished until the end of 1903. Today, the only remaining feature from the old church is the Good Samaritan window in the anmbulatory.
For five months, the congregation of Saint Anne’s worshipped in the Clarence Place Hall in May Street. The nave of the cathedral was completed in 1904 and was consecrated by Bishop Welland on 2 June 1904.
On the north side of the nave, moving from the west doors to the choir, the following corbels are set above each column or respond: the Archangel Gabriel, Bishop George Berkeley, Dean Henry Stewart O’Hara, Archbishop William King, Provost George Salmon, Bishop Jeremy Taylor, and the Archangel Michael.
On the south side of the nave, moving from the choir to the west doors, the figures in the corbels above each column or respond are: the Archangel Raphael, Archbishop James Ussher, Bishop Thomas Percy, Bishop William Bedell, Archbishop William Alexander, Cecil Frances Alexander and the Archangel Uriel.
Each of the pillars represents an aspect of life in Northern Ireland: science, linen industry, healing, agriculture, music, theology, shipbuilding, freemasonry, the arts, womanhood. The half columns or responds represent the cardinal virtues: courage, justice, temperance and wisdom.
The nave windows depict major figures from the Old Testament figures, the west windows depict temple-building, and the windows in the ambulatory represent five of Saint Paul’s fruits of the spirit.
The west front of the cathedral was built in the 1920s as a memorial to the men and women of Ulster who died in World War I, and was designed by the architect Sir Charles Archibald Nicholson.
The central crossing, where the chapter and choir are seated, was built in 1922-1924.
The Baptistry was built to plans drawn up by WH Lynn, who had assisted Sir Thomas Drew, and was dedicated in 1928.
The Chapel of the Holy Spirit, with mosaics depicting Saint Patrick, was dedicated on 5 July 1932, the 1,500th anniversary of the arrival of Saint Patrick in Ireland. It is open daily for private prayer and reflection.
The only tomb in the cathedral is that of the Dublin-born Unionist leader Edward Carson (1854-1935), who was given a state funeral in 1935 and is buried in the south aisle.
The cathedral was almost destroyed in 1941 by a German bomb that caused extensive damage to surrounding properties.
Work began on building the ambulatory, at the east end of the cathedral, in 1955. This work was dedicated in 1959, but it was not for another 10 years before work began on the north and south transepts. The Troubles and inflation led to long delays and major problems with financing this work.
The south transept, containing the Chapel of Unity and with the organ loft above, was dedicated in 1974.
The north transept, with a large Celtic cross designed by John MacGeagh on the exterior, houses the Chapel of the Royal Irish Rifles and was completed in 1981.
When Bishop Jeremy Taylor’s old church at Lower Ballinderry was restored some years ago, portions of its ancient oak furniture were made into a chair. The chair is now placed beneath his portrait on the north side of the ambulatory, providing a link with the great Bishop of Down and Connor and Dromore who is commemorated in the corbel above the Pillar of Music on the north side of the nave.
Work on the north and south transepts began in the 1960s. The south transept, with the Chapel of Unity and the organ loft, was dedicated in 1974; the north transept, with the Chapel of the Royal Irish Rifles, was completed in 1981.
The cathedral organ, with four manuals, is the second largest pipe-organ in Northern Ireland. It was built by Harrison and Harrison in 1907 and rebuilt in 1969-1975.
A 40-metre stainless steel spire, known as the ‘Spire of Hope,’ was installed on top of the cathedral in 2007. The base of the spire protrudes through a glass platform in the roof directly above the choir stalls, allowing it to be viewed from the nave. The steel spire is lit up at night and is part of a wider redevelopment plan for the Cathedral Quarter.
Belfast Cathedral is probably best known for the ‘Black Santa’ sit-outs at Christmas each year, first organised over 40 years ago by Dean Samuel Crooks. The tradition has been continued by successive deans, including the Very Stephen Forde, who has been dean since 2018, and the chapter members.
Today, Belfast Cathedral is also the focal point of Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter.
The Dean of Belfast is the Very Stephen Forde, and the Revd Cameron Mack is the cathedral curate. The Diocese of Connor and the Diocese of Down and Dromore each has four chapter members or canons.
• Said or Sung Eucharist is celebrated in Saint Anne’s Cathedral on Sundays at 11 am, with Evening Prayer or Evensong at 3:30. The weekday daily services include lunchtime prayers (1 pm, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday), Holy Communion (1 pm, Wednesday, saints’ days and other holy days), a Service of Healing (Friday, 1 pm) and Choral Evensong (5:30 pm every Friday).
