How the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin became Saint Mary’s Cathedral 200 years after it was completed

Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Marlborough Street, Dublin, was the ‘pro-cathedral’ for 200 years until last month (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

During my visit to Dublin last week, I visited three churches in the north inner city: Saint Mary’s Cathedral, known for almost 200 years as the ‘Pro-Cathedral’, on Marlborough Street; Saint Francis Xavier Church, the Jesuit-run church popularly known as Gardiner Street Church, between Mountjoy Square and Dorset Street, which I wrote about on Wednesday (3 December 2025); and the former Welsh Church on Talbot Street, which I wrote about last night (6 December 2025).

Saint Mary’s Cathedral was known for 200 years as Saint Mary's Pro-Cathedral, until it was designated as the Roman Catholic cathedral for the Archdiocese of Dublin last month (November 2025).

Until 2025, Dublin had two cathedrals, both belonging to the Church of Ireland: Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, which is the National Cathedral of the Church of Ireland, and Christ Church Cathedral, which is the diocesan cathedral of Dublin and Glendalough. In contrast, the Roman Catholic Church had no cathedral in Dublin until last month (November 2025).

Last year, the Greek Orthodox church on Arbour Hill, the Church of the Annunciation, began serving as the cathedral of the new Holy Orthodox Metropolis of Ireland, established in 2024 under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and with the appointment of Metropolitan Iakovos. Then this year, the Romanian Orthodox Church upgraded the former Christ Church on Leeson Park as its cathedral in Dublin.

Inside Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Dublin, looking towards the liturgical east and the High Altar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Pope Leo XIV granted cathedral status to Saint Mary’s last month (November 2025). Until then it was a ‘pro-cathedral’, meaning it was a provisional or acting cathedral. It had that title officially since 1886, although Saint Mary’s Church had used that designation unofficially since the 1820s.

Saint Mary’s Cathedral dates back to the repeal of the Penal Laws in the early 19th century. But for centuries, Roman Catholics in Dublin had been without a cathedral.

Many of the Penal Laws were cancelled by the late 18th century and early 19th century, and a number of early churches were built in the city centre, including Saint Francis Xavier Church, Gardiner Street (1829) and Saint Nicholas of Myra, Francis Street (1829-1834).

One of these ‘sprinkling pots’ or holy water fonts from Liffey Street Chapel can be seen in an outside wall of the cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Mary’s name is a reminder of Saint Mary’s Abbey, the great Benedictine and later Cistercian house in Dublin founded in the 12th century. Saint Mary’s was closed in 1539 at the Dissolution of the monastic houses during the Tudor Reformations. Marlborough Street, named after the 1st Duke of Marlborough, was the furthest eastern boundary of the abbey lands that were broken up and built on.

A new Church of Ireland parish of Saint Mary’s was formed in 1697, and Archbishop Edmund Byrne, who was in hiding, formed the Roman Catholic Parish of Saint Mary 10 years later in 1707. Father John Linegar (1671-1757), who had been ordained in Lisbon in 1694, became the first pastor of the new Saint Mary’s parish, a parish without church or chapel. He opened Saint Mary’s Chapel on Liffey Street in 1729.

Although it was listed officially as ‘Liffey Street mass-house’, it was a fine chapel with an altar, pulpit, paintings, confessionals, two galleries, several pews and two ‘sprinkling pots of black marble in chapel yard.’ One of these ‘sprinkling pots’ or holy water fonts is now inserted in the wall of the cathedral.

John Linegar became Archbishop of Dublin in 1734, and died in office on 21 June 1757.

Peter Turnerelli’s recumbent figure of Archbishop Troy is modelled on Isaia da Pisa's tomb of Pope Eugene IV in San Salvatore in Lauro, Rome (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

When John Thomas Troy, a Dominican friar and Bishop of Ossory, was appointed Archbishop of Dublin in 1786, he petitioned Pope Pius VI to make Saint Mary’s his mensal parish, and he began to plan for a ‘dignified spacious church’ in a central location. Troy formed a committee that bought Annesley House, Lord Annesley’s Dublin townhouse on the corner of Marlborough Street and Elephant Lane (later Tyrone Place and now Cathedral Street), close to Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street) in 1803. The site was chosen as the location for a new cathedral, pending the erection, when funds and the law allowed.

Troy announced a public competition in 1814, inviting designs for the new church. Lord Annesley’s townhouse was demolished in June 1814. The new church, built between 1815 and 1825, combines a number of styles: the exterior is in Greek revival style, while the interior is more Renaissance in style, based on the Church of Saint-Philippe du Roule of Paris.

Some believe the architect, known on the plans only by the initial ‘P’, was John Sweetman from Dublin, who had been living in exile in Paris since the 1798 Rising. A more likely opinion is that, although Sweetman sent the plans to Dublin, the architect was the French architect Louis Hippolyte le Bas, whose Church of Notre Dame de Lorette in Paris closely resembles Sain Mary’s, and that his identiry was kept secret as le Bas was Napoleon’s architect and Britain was at war with France.

The portico of Saint Mary’s is a copy of the Temple of Theseus or Theseion in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The design of Saint Mary’s combines a variety of styles: the exterior is Greek revival at its best, the front portico is a copy of the Temple of Theseus or Theseion in Athens, and the fluted Doric columns rise without bases from the podium or floor of the church; the interior is more Roman in style than Grecian.

A major alteration was the addition of a dome. One objector declared that ‘artistically and practically the dome was a mistake; it is no help to the preacher and constitutes a serious and unhappy departure from the graceful lines and principles of Grecian art.’ Another critic described it as ‘a beautiful deformity’.

A flag was flown from the dome in August 1821 to show that the shell of the building was completed. But money was scare, morale was low and in a renewed fundraising drive, Archbishop Troy, at the age of 83, went collecting from house to house.

Archbishop Daniel Murray celebrated the completion of the ‘Metropolitan Chapel’ 200 years ago on 14 November 1825 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The committee passed a resolution that this ‘splendid edifice be considered a National or Metropolitan rather that a Parish Chapel’ and in March 1823 Pope Pius VII sent a gold chalice, commissioned ‘for the new Cathedral being built in Dublin’. Dr Troy died two months later, on 11 May 1823. He had been the driving force behind the project, and his funeral Mass was the first Mass in the unfinished building.

Archbishop Daniel Murray of Dublin celebrated the completion of the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Chapel, as it was then called, 200 years ago on 14 November 1825, the feast of Saint Laurence O’Toole, patron saint of Dublin. The choir was directed by Haydn Corri and sang Mozart’s Grand Mass in C Minor, Ave Verum and Graun’s Te Deum. Most of the Irish hierarchy were present, and the preacher was James ‘JKL’ Doyle, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin. Daniel O’Connell (1775-1847) spoke at the reception afterwards.

To mark the end of the Penal Laws and the legislation for Catholic Emancipation, a special thanksgiving High Mass was celebrated in the cathedral in 1829. It was attended by Daniel O’Connell, who had taken took his seat as MP for Clare, having been elected the previous year.

As the first Catholic Lord Mayor of Dublin in centuries, O’Connell celebrated his election in 1841 by travelling in state to ‘the Pro-Cathedral’ for High Mass. When he died in Genoa on 15 May 1847, his heart was buried in Rome while his body was brought back to Dublin and laid in state in Saint Mary’s for four days before he was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

State funerals of major political figures there include Michael Collins, former presidents Seán T O’Kelly, Éamon de Valera and Patrick Hillery, and a former Lord Mayor of Dublin, Kathleen Clarke.

Cardinal Cullen’s marble monumenent is one the finest works by Sir Thomas Farrell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Architects who worked on the cathedral over the past 200 years include Sir Richard Morrison and William Virtuvius Morrison, John B Keane, John Bourke, George Papworth and Ralph Byrne. The sculptures on the pediment by Thomas Kirk were completed in 1845 and depict the Virgin Mary flanked by Saint Laurence O’Toole and Saint Kevin of Glendalough.

Archbishop Murray and Cardinal Cullen are commemorated with two monuments in marble, among the finest work of the sculptor by Sir Thomas Farrell (1827-1900). Murray is seen in a kneeling pose. Around the base of the standing figure of Cullen are scenes depicting his life and work as archbishop, including his concern for the sick and poor, for training priests and for Catholic education.

John Hogan and other leading sculptors of the day carved memorials to the benefactors of the diocese. Among the gifts of altar plate is a silver-gilt chalice, paten and cruet set presented in 1856 in honour of Saint Laurence O’Toole by Mary Teresa Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, a descendant of the O’Toole family.

Inside Saint Mary’s Cathedral, lookingtowards the liturgical west from the apse behind the sanctuary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Mary’s was never intended to be anything other than a temporary acting cathedral, until funds were found to build a full cathedral, and a number of locations for a new cathedral were proposed. WT Cosgrave, President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State (the equivalent of taoiseach or prime minister) from 1922 to 1932, once suggested the General Post Office on O’Connell, which had remained a burnt-out shell since the 1916 Rising. But the idea was not acted on and the GPO was restored as a post office.

John Charles McQuaid (1895-1973), who was Archbishop of Dublin in 1940-1972, bought the gardens in Merrion Square with plans to build a cathedral. But his proposals were never acted on and the gardens were eventually handed over to Dublin Corporation and opened to the public. At times, there were suggestions that one of the two Church of Ireland cathedrals in the city might be transferred to the Roman Catholic Church, but this never happened either.

In the meantime, most of the funds collected for building a new cathedral were spent on building new churches in the 1970s and 1980s in a fast-growing diocese.

Pope John Paul visited Saint Mary’s in 1992 and Pope Francis visited in 2018.

The front panel of Turnerelli’s original altar was incorprated in the new altar when it was moved after Vatican II (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Architecturally, the cathedral’s dramatic mixture of Greek and Roman styles has been controversial in the past, with different critics describing it as either an artistic gem or an eyesore.

The main aisle leads up to the High Altar, and behind it is a stained glass window of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Saint Mary. The stucco alto-rilievo of the Ascension is the work of John Smyth, while the High Altar was carved by Peter Turnerelli, a Belfast-born, Dublin-based sculptor with Italian parents.

In preparation for the Centenary of Catholic Emancipation in 1928 and the Eucharistic Congress in 1932, the floor space the church was extended on both sides in another unhappy alteration of John Sweetman’s original design. The elegant portico on the Cathedral Street side was walled up between the Doric columns, and what had once been Saint Kevin’s chapel in the north flank became simply open space within the church.

For most of its time, Saint Mary’s had a massive Victorian altar and reredos by Peter Turnerelli. They were removed in the late 1970s during reordering following the liturgical changes introduced at the second Vatican Council. The architect for these changes was Cathal O’Neill, Professor of Architecture in University College Dublin.

The reredos was removed, leaving just the tabernacle, although the front panel of the original altar was reinstated in the new altar, which was moved to the centre of a new paved area in an expanded sanctuary. The altar rails were also removed. The pulpit was moved too, to a position in a corner of the building.

The cathedral went on fire in the early 1990s, and although the fire was brought under control, there was considerable smoke damage in one corner of the building.

Looking towards the liturgical west end of Saint Mary’s Cathedral and the organ from the High Altar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The original organ was built by the Dublin organ builder John White in the late 19th century. The present organ has some of White’s original pipework. The present façade of the organ dates from William Hill’s work around 1900. Later work was carried out by Henry Willis & Co in the 1930s, before JW Walker’s major rebuild in 1971 and a more recent refurbishment in 1995. The newly refurbished organ was inaugurated in a gala concert by Olivier Latry on 20 March 1996.

The organ is one of the finest examples in Ireland of the late 19th century grand Romantic organ, and many great organists have played it: Daniel Chorzempa, Xavier Darasse, Sir David Lumsden, Daniel Roth, Dame Gillian Weir, Arthur Wills, Olivier Latry and others.

The Titular Organist of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Gerard Gillen, was appointed in 1976; David Grealy was appointed Associate Organist in 2017. A chancel organ built by John White is on on the epistle (right) side of the High Altar.

The stucco alto-rilievo of the Ascension is by John Smyth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Mary’s is known for the resident choir, the Palestrina Choir, which had its origins in a boys’ choir formed in the 1890s by Vincent O’Brien, and Edward Martyn was the founding sponsor. Pope Pius X promoted the music of Palestrina as the standard to which liturgical music should aspire.

The Palestrina Choir was installed in the cathedral in 1903 and Vincent O’Brien was the director until 1946. The Palestrina Choir has attracted notable singers over the years, including Count John McCormack who was a member in 1904-1905. The present director of the choir is Blánaid Murphy.

During the school term, the Palestrina Choir sings at Sunday morning Solemn Latin Mass (Novus Ordo), Friday Vespers and Benediction (5:15 pm) and Mass (5:45 pm). A girls’ choir was formed in 2009.

Inside the dome of Saint Mary’s Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

More recently, there were proposals to name Saint Andrew’s Church, Westland Row, as the cathedral, but with last month’s decision, Saint Andrew’s has been declared a basilica and Saint Mary’s is now officially the cathedral of the city, the diocese and the archbishop – although it is likely to be known to generations to come in Dublin simply as ‘the Pro’.

As the architectural historian Christine Casey says, it ‘still ranks among the most powerful Greek Revival Church interiors in these islands.’

‘The Dublin Martyrs’, Margaret Ball (1584) and Francis Taylor (1621), bronze figures (2001) by Conall MacCabe (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Further reading:

Christine Casey, Dublin (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005, Pevsner Architectural Guides, Buildings of Ireland series).

Peter Costello, Dublin Churches (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1989).

Dermod McCarthy, Saint Mary’s Pro-Cathedral Dublin (Dublin: Eason, 1988, the Irish Heritage series).

Saint Mary’s Cathedral seen from the grounds of the Department of Education, the former Model School and Scoil Chaoimhínon Marlborough Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A walk though Soho to ask why there is no Greek restaurant or church on Greek Street

The Pillars of Hercules on Greek Street, Soho, celebrates the feats of Hercules in Greek mythology (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

One of the silly conundrums I pose when I find myself in Soho is: why is there no Greek restaurant on Greek Street?

Greek Street, which runs from Soho Square to Shaftesbury Avenue, takes its name from the small Greek church that stood on Hog Lane, now buried under Charing Cross Road, roughly where the Montague Pyke pub now stands.

An early map by Fairthorn and Newcourt in 1658 shows the location as a rectangular field that may have been owned by the Crown. A parcel of land known as Soho Fields was steadily sold off to developers.

Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans, acquired the ownership of the area in the 1660s, and then leased out the land to Joseph Girle. He received permission to develop the area and then, in turn, passed on the lease for development to a builder, Richard Frith, who gives his name to Frith Street, where Mozart stayed at No 20 in 1764-1765.

Work on developing Greek Street began in 1680. William Morgan’s map in 1682 shows Greek Street with 17 plots on its east side and 12 on the west side, and the street was bisected by Queen’s Street, now Bateman Street.

The Pillars of Hercules, a half-timber pub dating from the early 18th century, on Greek Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The origins of the first Greek Orthodox Church in London dates back to the late 17th century. The first church was founded to meet the needs of a growing Greek community in London.

The main driving force behind the new church was Metropolitan Joseph Georgerinis of Samos. A Greek priest, Father Daniel Voulgaris, and number of Greeks living in London signed a petition in 1674 seeking permission ‘to build a church in any part of the city of London, where they may freely exercise their religion according to the Greek Church’.

Permission was granted in 1675 and work began in 1677 on building a small church. The church was completed in 1681, and was dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin Mary.

The church stood at what was then the edge of the city in Soho in Hog Lane, off Charing Cross Road, and Hog Lane eventually became known as Greek Street. Most Greeks in London at the time were refugees from the oppression of the Ottoman Turks, but lived and worked in the City and around the ports of London. The church was too far from those Greek residents and they found they were unable to attend the Divine Liturgy regularly or support its function.

The church ended up being sold in 1682 and the building was taken over by another group of refugees, French Protestant Huguenots who had fled to England. There were more than 30 Huguenot churches and chapels in London by the early 18th century.

Although the church changed hands, the name Greek Street stuck with the street, which was laid out in the 1670s and 1680s, with taverns, coffee houses and tradesmen’s workshops.

William Hogarth’s painting and print, ‘Noon’ (1736-1738) shows a scene outside the former Greek church on Greek Street

William Hogarth produced a set of four paintings and prints in 1736-1738, including one called ‘Noon’ that shows a scene outside the Greek church, which by then had become the French Church. The spire in the background is either Saint Anne’s Church, Soho, or Saint Giles-in-the-Fields.

The early residents of Greek Street included Arthur Annesley (1678-1737), 5th Earl of Anglesey and 6th Viscount Valentia, who was MP for Cambridge and for New Ross, Co Wexford, in the English and Irish Houses of Commons at the same time. He owned large estates near Camolin, Wexford, and his offices in Ireland included Vice-Treasurer and Paymaster General and Governor of Co Wexford.

Casanova stayed on Greek Street when he was visiting London in 1764. No 1 was once the home of Sir William Beckford (1709-1770), twice Lord Mayor of London (1762, 1769). Other residents included Josiah Wedgwood in 1774-1797.

The writer Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859), author of Confessions of an Opium-Eater (1821), also stayed on Greek Street for a time. Sir Joseph Bazalgette (1819-1891) began designing London’s sewer system in the offices of the Westminster Commissioners Sewers at No 1 Greek Street. No 1 later became the House of Saint Barnabas.

The passageway through the arch seen from Manette Street, with the name of the Pillars of Hercules seen above (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

With no Greek restaurants, and the long disappearance of the Greek church, the only hint of a Greek presence, past or present, on Greek Street is through the name Greek mythology has given to the Pillars of Hercules, a half-timbered pub at No 7, at the north end of Greek Street.

The name celebrates the feats of Hercules, who was renowned for his strength and courage, and two landmarks, the Rock of Gibraltar on the north side and Mount Hacho on the south side that mark the entrance to the Mediterranean. Greek mythology says Hercules set up the pillars after cleaving a path through the land to create the Straits of Gibraltar during his tenth laboir. The northern pillar is the Rock of Gibraltar, while the southern pillar is either Jebel Musa in Morocco or Monte Hacho in Ceuta.

Most of what exists of the Pillars of Hercules today was built around 1910. But a pub has been on the site since before 1700, and it was first recorded in 1709.

The passageway through the arch at the side of the pub through leads into Manette Street, named after Dr Manette, one of the characters in A Tale of Two Cities, who is described by Charles Dickens as living near Soho Square.

Greek mythology says Hercules created the Straits of Gibraltar when he pushed two pillars apart, separating Europe from Africa (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A sign at the pub says the Pillars of Hercules was also frequented in the 19th century by the poet, cricket lover and Catholic mystic Francis Thompson (1859-1906), author of the poem The Hound of Heaven.

Those literary associations were revived in the 1970s when the Pillars of Hercules was known as a literary pub and the meeting place of writers such as Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan, Clive James and Ian Hamilton. Clive James named his second book of literary criticism At the Pillars of Hercules, apparently because most of the pieces were commissioned, delivered or written there.

The pub closed on 24 February 2018, but reopened later that year as Bar Hercules under new owners Be At One. In 2022, the cocktail bar chain Simmons took over the pub, and the pub continues to serve under the name of the Pillars of Hercules above the arch and the sign of Hercules above the Greek Street façade.

Other premises on Greek Street today include the Coach and Horses (No 29), the Gay Hussar restaurant (No 2) and Maison Bertaux (No 28), the oldest French pâtisserie in London. Three of the mirrors in the shop contain the inscriptions Liberté, égalité, fraternité, and each year, the shop creates a tableau vivant on 14 July to celebrate Bastille Day – so, even if you can’t get a good Greek meal on Greek Street, there is always a good French patisserie.

As for the former Greek church on Greek Street, it was demolished in 1934. However, the inscription commemorating the foundation of the first Greek Orthodox Church in London has survived and can still be seen in the left part of the narthex of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Bayswater.

Sunlight on the waters of the Straits of Gibraltar between the Pillars of Hercules and the coasts of Spain and Morocco (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The New Ross pub where a leading Temperance campaigner was born

The Annesley Town House on North Street, New Ross … has links with James II, the Annesley kidnapping scandal and the Jesuit founder of the Pioneers (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

You may not have heard the story of the great Irish Temperance campaigner who was born in a public house in Co Wexford.

But a plaque above Hanrahan’s pub on 12 North Street, New Ross, recalls that this house was the birthplace of Father James Aloysius Cullen (1841-1921), the Jesuit priest who founded the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association in 1898.

Another plaque on the façade names this as Annesley Town House, and traces the history of the house back almost 3½ centuries, claiming that ‘King James II rested here after the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 on his way to a waiting ship at Duncannon.’

This plaque also recalls an interesting association of the Annesley family with New Ross. Arthur Annesley (1677-1737) had been MP for New Ross in Ireland and for Cambridge University in England at the same time, when he inherited the estates of his brother John Annesley (1676-1710), and became the 5th Earl of Anglesey in 1727. He later became Governor of Co Wexford (1727).

In a complicated line of succession, his cousin, Arthur Annesley (1686-1727), inherited another set of Annesley family estates and titles as the 4th Lord Altham when he was only 15. By then he was already a rake and a gambler, by the age of 18 he was married and widowed, and in 1707 he married his second wife, Mary Sheffield, an illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Buckingham.

Arthur lived a dissolute life and squandered his inheritance. He moved back to Ireland in 1710 because of the lower cost of living and rented Dunmain House, near Gusserane, south-east of New Ross, from Margaret Pigott Colclough. Arthur and Mary separated briefly, but they were reconciled in 1713, and on 15 April 1715 Mary gave birth in Dunmain House to a son and heir, James Annesley. When the child was baptised in the house, Mrs Colclough was one of his godparents.

James Annesley became the famous missing and kidnapped heir, and was at the heart of a series of court cases that became society scandals in the mid-18th century. James died in England at the age of 44 in 1760 without ever enforcing the court rulings in his favour that would have allowed him to recover his titles and his estates in Co Wexford. His story is said to have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped.

Two plaques recall the colourful history of Annesley Town House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Father James Aloysius Cullen, who was born in the Annesley Town House in New Ross on 23 October 1841, was a man of a very different temperament to the key figures in the Annesley scandals, and he went on to become the founder of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association (PTAA).

Shortly after James Cullen was born, the Cullen family moved across the river to Bawnjames House, Co Kilkenny, near Rosbercon on the west bank of New Ross. James Cullen first went to school with the Christian Brothers in New Ross before going on to the Jesuit-run school at Clongowes Wood in Co Kildare in 1856.

He studied for the priesthood in Carlow from 1861 and was ordained priest by Bishop James Walshe in Carlow Cathedral on 28 October 1864.

James Cullen became a priest in the Diocese of Ferns, where his first appointment was as a curate in Wexford town, where he introduced the Christmas Crib. Two years later, he helped establish the Ferns House of Missions in Enniscorthy, and for 15 years he was the Superior of the House of Missions.

He joined the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1881, and after studies in Belgium, he returned to Dublin. A born organiser, he founded the Pioneers in 1898, edited the Sacred Heart Messenger, and built the Saint Francis Xavier Hall (SFX) in Gardiner Street. He died in Dublin on 6 December 1921, having heard the news of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

The house associated with the Cullen family is now Hanrahan’s public house. This is a terraced, two-bay four-storey house, was built or rebuilt ca 1825, and was renovated ca 1880, when the rendered façade enrichments were added and the symmetrical pub front was inserted on the ground floor.

This pub front has fluted pilasters on polished granite plinths, fixed-pane windows, glazed timber panelled doors with overlights, a fascia with gabled paired fluted consoles, and dentilated moulded cornice with cresting.

Most of the historic or original fabric, both outside and inside, have survived, keeping the character of this street in New Ross.

The pub front was inserted in around 1880 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Valentia Island: home of the Knights of Kerry and transatlantic cables

Valentia Island seen from Renard Point, the seaport in Valentia Harbour (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

For the people of Valentia Island, Ireland is ‘the other island.’ They say, ‘you can do Ireland in a day, but you really only do Valentia properly in a lifetime.’

So, let me confess, I spent just a day on Valentia Island at the beginning of summer, and realise that I only got a taste of the island.

I had not been to Valentia for over 50 years, and during a return visit to Ballinskelligs and the Ring of Kerry we decided to do some ‘island hopping’ in Ireland in advance of our island holiday in Greece – viewing the Skelligs Rocks and visiting Valentia Island at the south-west tip of Co Kerry.

We were on the Wild Atlantic Way, but little did we realise as we drove around Valentia in the summer sunshine that we were missing some of the major sites that tourists normally visit, including the Slate Quarry, the Lighthouse at the Cromwell Fort, Geokaun Mountain and its spectacular views, Bray Head and Signature Point.

But we enjoyed Valentia Island Farmhouse Ice Cream, sitting in a parlour looking out at the pastures where the cows that produced the milk were grazing on the Daly family’s farm.

Valentia Harbour on a calm summer’s day (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Like many visitors, I had presumed that Valentia received its name from Valencia in Spain – perhaps thanks to Spanish traders or survivors of the Armanda. But I was wrong. Valentia Island is known in Irish as Inse Dairbhre, or the ‘Island of the Oak Wood,’ and the name Valentia comes from a settlement on the island called An Bhaile Inse or Beal Inse (‘mouth of the island’ or ‘island in the mouth of the sound’).

Valentia Ice Cream … an island treat in the summer sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Druids and Papal taxes

Valentia Island, off the Iveragh Peninsula, is one of Ireland’s most westerly points. It is about 11 km (7 miles) long, 3 km (2 miles) wide, and has a population of 665.

It is linked to the mainland by a bridge at Portmagee, and during the summer months (April to October) the island is also served by a car ferry between Reenard Point, near Cahersiveen and Knightstown, the island’s main village. There is a second, smaller village at Chapeltown, in the middle of the island, about 3 km from the bridge.

Valentia Island and its neighbouring islets are scattered with ancient cairns, dolmens, wedge tombs, standing stones, Ogham stones, a promontory fort, and the remains of churches and numerous beehive huts.

Mug Ruith, or Mogh Roith, ‘slave of the wheel,’ a mythological, powerful, blind druid of Munster, is said to have lived on Valentia Island. It was believed he could grow to enormous size, and that his breath caused storms and turned men to stone.

But the first recorded notice of people living on the island is found 1291 in the Papal taxations of Pope Nicholas IV, when a church on the island is valued at 13s 4d.

Knightstown, the main town on Valentia Island, takes its name from the Knights of Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Trade with Spain was important in the 16th century, when Spanish wine was sold on board ships at Portmagee and in the waters around Valentia Island.

Until the 17th century, much of the island was owned by the O'Sullivans, headed by the O’Sullivan Beare.

In 1621, the title of Viscount Valentia was given to Henry Power, and a year later, his kinsman, Sir Francis Annesley, was given a ‘reversionary grant’ of the title, so that he became the new Viscount Valentia when Henry Power died in 1642. The other family titles included Baron Mountnorris, Baron Annesley, Baron Altham, Viscount Glerawly and Earl of Anglesey.

The Annesley family became the principal landowners on the island in 1653, and the other major landholder was Trinity College Dublin.

Richard Annesley assumed the tiles of sixth Earl of Anglesey and seventh Viscount Valentia in 1737. But a scandal unfolded as James Annesley challenged his claims, saying he had been born in Bunclody, Co Wexford, as the rightful heir, but had been kidnapped and sold into slavery by his uncle.

The Annesley family leased much of the island to Sir Robert FitzGerald (1717-1781), 17th Knight of Kerry, in 1752.

The title of Knight of Kerry, sometimes called the ‘Green Knight,’ is one of three hereditary knighthoods in branches of the FitzGerald family since the Battle of Callan in 1261. The other two were the White Knight and the Knight of Glin (the ‘Black Night’).

The railway line from Killorglin to Renard Point … the last train left Valentia Harbour on 30 January 1960 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Poetic inspiration

Market Street or Main Street in Knightstown, a planned village (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Eventually the Knights of Kerry bought out their leases from the Annesley family. They remained the principal landlords on Valentia for generations, and had their home at Glanleam, near Knightstown.

The estate was finally bought out in 1807 by Sir Maurice Fitzgerald (1772-1849), 18th Knight of Kerry and Vice-Treasurer in the Duke of Wellington’s government. According to family tradition, Sir Maurice attended the celebrated ball on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

His title gave its name to Knightstown, the principal settlement on the island, which he planned and built. His guests on Valentia Island included the Duke of Rutland, the war journalist William Howard Russell (1820-1907) from Tallaght, who reported on the Crimean War for The Times; the three-times Prime Minister Lord Stanley, later the Earl of Derby; and the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson. It is said that his visit to Valentia inspired Tennyson’s well-known lines:

Break, break, break,
Oh thy cold grey stones, O Sea!

The bridge linking Valentia Island with Portmagee (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

At the north-east corner of the island, the subtropical gardens at Glanleam House. are protected by windbreaks from Atlantic gales. They are never touched by frost, and they enjoy the mildest microclimate in Ireland. Although Valentia Island is on the same latitude as Newfoundland, it enjoys much milder winters and the effects of the Gulf Stream mean the island can support many sub-tropical varieties of plants.

The gardens owe their origins to Sir Peter George Fitzgerald (1808-1880), the 19th Knight of Kerry, who planted them in the 1830s and stocked them with a unique collection of rare and tender plants from South America, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Japan.

Sir Peter FitzGerald was Vice-Treasurer of Ireland in the last government of Sir Robert Peel. He succeeded his father in 1849 and lived almost constantly on Valentia Island. He was a benevolent landlord, improving the estates, and enhancing the welfare of his tenants. Local tradition says that the tenants of Trinity College Dublin were worse off and were ‘rack-rented.’

Sir Peter was instrumental in introducing and developing flax growing and weaving, the railway terminal at Renard Point, the seaport in Valentia Harbour, the European end of the transatlantic cable, a slate quarry, and planning and building Knightstown, which was named after him.

The Rocket Car recalls the early Coast and Cliff Rescue services on Valentia Island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

In the 1850s, Valentia became the eastern terminus of the first commercially viable transatlantic cable, and a decade of endeavours finally resulted in commercially viable transatlantic telegraph communications from Valentia to Newfoundland in 1866.

Two pioneering scientists, Benjamin Apthorp Gould (1824-1896) and AT Mosman, built a longitude observatory beside the Cable Station in 1866. Valentia Observatory, which is part of Met Éireann, the Irish Meteorological Service, dates from 1868. The Valentia Island Weather Station is 25 metres above sea level and is one of the 22 coastal weather stations whose reports are broadcast as part of the BBC ‘Shipping Forecast.’ Valentia Island is, on average, the wettest weather station in Ireland.

The transatlantic telegraph cables continued to operate from Valentia Island for 100 years until in 1966.

Royal visits and Royal Hotel

The Royal Valentia Hotel … visited by two future kings during the reign of Queen Victoria (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The 19th Knight of Kerry also organised many royal visits to the island. Queen Victoria’s son, Prince Albert Edward, later King Edward VII, visited in 1858. When his younger brother, Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, visited in 1869, the name of Young’s Hotel in Knightstown was changed to the Royal Hotel.

Inside the Royal Valentia Hotel … retaining Victorian elegance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

On 8 July 1880, Sir Peter was given the additional hereditary title of baronet. But he died less than a month later on 6 August 1880. His title and estates passed to his eldest son, Sir Maurice FitzGerald (1844-1916), as second baronet and 20th Knight of Kerry. He was the last of the family to live on Valentia Island. His wife Amélie Bischoffsheim (1858-1947), was a daughter of the Dutch banker Henri Louis Bischoffsheim (1829-1908).

The Bischoffsheim family founded three of the largest banks in the world: the Deutsche Bank, Parisbas Bank and Societe Generale. Lady FitzGerald’s sister, Ellen (1857-1933), married William Cuffe (1845-1898), 4th Earl of Desart; Lady Desart, who lived at Desart Court, Co Kilkenny, later became President of the Gaelic League and a Senator (1922-1933) in the new Irish Free State, and she has been described as ‘the most important Jewish woman in Irish history.’

Sir Maurice’s sisters, Elizabeth Anne and Julia, both married Francis Spring Rice (1852-1937), 4th Baron Monteagle, and his son, Charles Spring Rice (1887-1946), like many members of the Spring Rice family, was brought up at Glanleam House on Valentia Island.

The Clock Tower on Royal Pier, Knightstown … built in 1880 and restored in 1990 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The slate quarry which opened in 1816, closed after a landfall in 1911, provided slates for the House of Parliament in Westminster. Bewicke Blackburn, the engineer and quarry manager, was the father of Helen Blackburn (1842-1903), a leading women’s rights campaigner and suffragette, who was born on Valentia.

The noted naturalist and biologist Maude Jane Delap (1866-1953) was the seventh of ten children of the Revd Alexander William Delap (1830-1906), who moved to Valentia Island when he became the Rector of Cahersiveen. She lived and worked in Knightstown, carrying out important research into the marine life surrounding Valentia and identifying many new species.

Other celebrated islanders included the footballers Mick O’Connell and Ger O’Driscoll.

Church of Ireland parish church

The Church of Saint John the Baptist was one of the last churches designed by Joseph Welland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The Church of Ireland parish church, Saint John the Baptist, is one of the last churches designed by Joseph Welland (1798-1860). It was built in 1860, replacing an earlier church built in 1815. The stained-glass windows are memorials to the Knights of Kerry.

The stained-glass windows in Saint John’s Church commemorate the Knights of Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

A sign claims the church is the ‘most westerly Protestant church in Europe.’ It is open from May to September, and is the venue for an ecumenical Christmas service and regular musical recitals and lectures. The Sensory Garden was designed by Arthur Shackleton to cater for people with disabilities, and was opened by Bishop Michael Mayes in 2005.

The Sensory Garden in the grounds of Saint John’s Church was designed by Arthur Shackleton and opened in 2005 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The FitzGerald and TCD estates on Valentia were sold by the Congested Districts Board in 1913. Today, the FitzGerald family titles are held by Sir Adrian James Andrew Denis FitzGerald, 6th Baronet of Valentia and 24th Knight of Kerry.

Meanwhile, the title of Viscount of Valentia has passed through obscure lines of descent in the Annesley family and is held by Francis Annesley, the 16th Viscount, who succeeded in 2005. Lord Valentia is also Ireland’s premier baronet, although he has not successfully proven his right to the titles.

The Royal Valentia Hotel has been operated by the Kidd family since 2004, and has been lovingly restored over the past decade.

Valentia Island and the bridge seen from Portmagee (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

This feature was published in July 2018 in the ‘Church Review' (Dublin and Glendalough) and the ‘Diocesan Magazine' (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory)

‘The Clock Tower Knightstown’ by Malcolm Sowerby

The kidnapped schoolboy who inspired novels is still remembered in Bunclody

James Annesley (1715-1760) … the schoolboy from Co Wexford whose story inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Kidnapped’

Patrick Comerford

Two recent visits to Bunclody and Camolin, Co Wexford, brought back memories of a story I first told over 35 years ago. The tale of James Annesley, the kidnapped heir, and his wicked uncle, Richard Annesley, is a story told in many families with roots in Bunclody. I first heard this story when I was a child, and I first wrote about it in a feature on the River Slaney in The Irish Times [27 July 1980].

It is a story of attempted murders, bigamous marriages, a penniless heir who became a street urchin, the kidnap of a former Bunclody schoolboy, slavery in America, suspicious killings, a punch-up at the races, and protracted court cases.

Francis Annesley (1585-1660), MP for Lismore, Co Waterford, was one of the 11 proprietors in a plan for the Plantation of Wexford

This story is more gripping than the novels it inspired, and it begins in the early 17th century, with Francis Annesley (1585-1660), who was once MP for Lismore, Co Waterford. He received large grants of land and was one of the 11 proprietors in a plan for the Plantation of Wexford.

Although the Plantation of Wexford never developed, the Annesley family became wealthy landowners. Francis received the titles of Baron Mountnorris (1629) and Viscount Valentia (1642), and the Annesley estates stretched into every province. In Co Wexford, they included the Manor of Annesley, later Camolin Park, and Castle Annesley, near Kilmuckridge.

Complicated family tree

Arthur Annesley (1614-1686) became Earl of Anglesey in 1661 and one of the richest landowners in Co Wexford

After the restoration of Charles II, Francis Annesley’s estates in Co Wexford passed to his eldest son, Arthur Annesley (1614-1686), who became Earl of Anglesey in 1661. In Dublin, he acquired land between his town house in College Green and the River Liffey, and this was later developed as Anglesea Street. He had a large family of 13 children, and in the generations that followed, his estates and titles passed through a complicated line of descent that is often difficult to unravel.

Anglesea Street is named after the first Earl of Anglesey was once the financial heart of Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

His eldest son, James Annesley (1645-1690), was MP for Co Waterford (1666) before inheriting the titles and estates, including Camolin, in 1686. His eldest son, also James Annesley (1674-1702), became the second earl in 1690 and inherited Camolin when he came of age in 1695. In Westminster Abbey in 1699, he married Lady Catherine Darnley, an illegitimate daughter of King James II. But they separated two years later when she accused him of cruelty and trying to murder her.

Camolin Park House, at the heart of the Annesley estates in Co Wexford, was demolished in the last century (Photograph: collection Tommy Redmond/Dan Walsh)

In 1702, Camolin and the titles passed to James’s next brother, John Annesley (1676-1710), 4th Earl of Anglesey. By 1703, he was one of the largest landowners in Co Wexford, with over 24,000 acres in Camolin, Ferns, Bunclody and elsewhere. But John had no sons, and Camolin and the titles passed to his next brother, Arthur Annesley (1677-1737). Arthur had been MP for New Ross in Ireland and for Cambridge University in England at the same time, and later became Governor of Co Wexford (1727).

Castle Annesley, near Kilmuckridge, Co Wexford, is now in ruins (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

However, the Annesley estates in Bunclody and Carrickduff had passed earlier to his late uncle, Altham Annesley (1650-1699), who became Lord Altham in 1681. Lord Altham’s widow Ursula held onto the Bunclody estates when he died in 1699, and eventually, through a complicated line of succession, his younger brother, the Very Revd Richard Annesley (1655-1701), became third Lord Altham.

But Richard never inherited the Bunclody estates and never sat in the House of Lords. In the Church of England, he was a canon of Westminster Abbey (1679) and Dean of Exeter Cathedral (1681), and when he died in 1701 he was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Rake and gambler

Dunmain House, near Gusserane, Co Wexford, where James Annesley was born in 1715

Dean Annesley’s eldest son, Arthur Annesley (1686-1727), became fourth Lord Altham, when he was only 15 and already a rake and a gambler. By the age of 18, he was married and widowed, and in 1707 he married his second wife, Mary Sheffield, an illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Buckingham.

Arthur lived a dissolute life and squandered his inheritance. He moved to Ireland in 1710 because of the lower cost of living and rented Dunmain House, near Gusserane, south-east of New Ross, from Margaret Pigott Colclough. Arthur and Mary separated briefly, but they were reconciled in 1713, and on 15 April 1715 Mary gave birth in Dunmain House to a son and heir, James Annesley. When the child was baptised in the house, Mrs Colclough was one of his godparents.

Two years later, Lord Altham accused Mary of having an affair with a neighbour, Thomas Palliser, and in a scuffle Altham’s servant struck off Palliser’s earlobe. But it was a charade staged by Altham so he could turn Mary out of house and home. She stayed briefly in New Ross before she fled to England, where she lived in extreme poverty until her death in 1729.

Arthur’s debts continued to mount, but he was unable to get his hands on the family estates. Some had passed to a distant cousin, others were tied up in family trusts, and in November 1719 his widowed aunt, Ursula Lady Altham, leased for ever to James Barry 10,000 acres in Co Carlow and in the Barony of Scarawalsh, Co Wexford, for “£4,000 and 20 broad pieces of gold.” The estates formed present-day Bunclody and Carrickduff, and the Maxwell-Barry family named the town Newtownbarry.

James Annesley spent part of his childhood in Bunclody and went to school there (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Murder and kidnapping

The wandering heir … a Victorian illustration of Lord Altham’s heir James Annesley wandering the streets of Bunclody or Dublin

In 1720, Arthur moved to Carrickduff, on the Carlow side of Bunclody, with his new mistress, Sally Gregory, and sent his young son James to a school run by James Dempsey in Bunclody. In 1722, they moved from Carrickduff to Dublin, but Sally took a dislike to James, and the boy was thrown out of the house and left to roam the streets. He briefly attended a school run by Barnaby Dunn in Werburgh Street, but fended for himself, running errands for students at Trinity College Dublin, and found shelter in the home of John Purcell, a butcher, on Arran Quay.

In Dublin, James Annesley briefly attended a school in Werburgh Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Lord Altham died suddenly in Inchicore on 16 November 1727. Sally Gregory and Arthur’s younger brother Richard were both suspected of poisoning him, but there was no autopsy and no investigations, and Arthur was buried in the crypt of Christ Church Cathedral two nights later at public expense.

Arthur Annesley was buried at night in the crypt in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, after his suspicious death (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Young James was now the heir to his father’s titles and debt-encumbered estates. But he also stood in way of his avaricious and ambitious uncle, Richard Annesley (1693-1761), who was once tried as a highwayman and was known as the “greatest rogue in Europe.”

After his father’s death, James Annesley was kidnapped near Essex Bridge in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Richard arranged to have the boy kidnapped near Essex Bridge in Dublin, declared he was dead and assumed the title of Lord Altham. Ten years later, with the death of his childless cousin Arthur in 1737, Richard also assumed the Irish titles of 7th Baron Mountnorris and 7th Viscount Valentia, and the English titles of 6th Baron Annesley and 6th Earl of Anglesey, with seats in both Houses of Lords, and also became Governor of Co Wexford.

But his kidnapped nephew would return to challenge his claims and to question the legitimacy of his marriages.

After his kidnapping, James was sold as an indentured servant in 1728 on his uncle’s orders. After 12 years of virtual slavery in Delaware, he escaped in 1740 and made his way on foot to Philadelphia where he found passage on a merchant ship to Jamaica. There he enlisted as a midshipman on HMS Falmouth under Admiral Edward Vernon.

When he was discharged in 1741, James settled in England. There, while out shooting sparrows near Staines in 1742, he killed a poacher. During his trial, he told the court dramatically: “I claim to be Earl of Anglesey and a peer of this realm.” Last-minute testimony proved the shooting was accidental, and James returned to Ireland to claim his birthright.

In the ensuing court case, Richard Annesley claimed James was not the legitimate son of Mary Sheffield, but the illegitimate son of Joan ‘Juggy’ Landy. James, for his part, said Joan was his wetnurse, and witnesses said Joan’s own child had died at the age of 3 or 4.

The court ruled in favour of James in 1743. Now the family estates and titles were rightfully his, but Richard refused to give up the battle. James narrowly escaped an assassination attempt and then was beaten up by hired thugs at the Curragh Races. His uncle was convicted for these offences in Athy, Co Kildare, in 1744, but continued to call himself Lord Anglesey.

However, poverty prevented James from enforcing the court rulings, and he died in England at the age of 44 in 1760. He had married twice, but his only son, Bankes Annesley (1757-1764), died at the age of 7 before ever claiming his rights.

Bigamy in Camolin

Richard Annesley (1745-1824), former MP for Irishtown and Blessington, was a cousin and near contemporary of the scheming Richard Annesley

Meanwhile, the de facto Lord Anglesey continued to enjoy his estates and his titles until he died at Camolin Park on 14 February 1761. However, legal doubts surrounded the legitimacy of his own children and their rights to succeed to his titles and properties. A serial bigamist, he had married at least four women, including Ann Prust (1715), Ann Simpson (1715), Juliana Donovan (1741 or 1752), the daughter of a Camolin publican or a Wexford merchant – depending on the rumours of the day – and Anne Salkeld (1742).

The cases depended on whether a marriage certificate dated 1741 was made out in 1752 and backdated on purpose. In 1765, the Irish courts ruled that Arthur Annesley (1744-1816), the only son of Richard and Juliana, was legitimate and he inherited Camolin and his father’s Irish titles as 8th Viscount Valentia. But in 1771, the English courts denied his legitimacy. Unable to claim his father’s English peerages, Arthur still became Governor of Co Wexford (1776-1778) and was given the Irish title of Earl of Mountnorris in 1793.

Annesley Bridge in Dublin is named after the other Richard Annesley (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

His was a near-contemporary of his namesake and second cousin, Richard Annesley (1745-1824), former MP for Irishtown, Kilkenny, and Blessington, Co Wicklow, who gave his name to Annesley Bridge in Dublin and became 2nd Earl Annesley in 1802.

Lady Lucy’s Wood … a lingering memory of the Annesley family in Bunclody (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Meanwhile, the Annesley connection with Newtownbarry or Bunclody was revived in 1789 when Lady Juliana Lucy Annesley (1772-1833), daughter of Arthur and granddaughter of the wicked uncle Richard, married Colonel John Maxwell-Barry (1767-1838), later 5th Lord Farnham, in 1823. His father, Bishop Henry Maxwell, built Saint Mary’s Church in Bunclody.

Lady Lucy’s Seat in Bunclody was named after her, the Millrace Hotel is built on the site of Lady Lucy’s Wood, and the rooftop restaurant is known as Lady Lucy’s Restaurant.

The story that scandalised polite society in the 18th century inspired Sir Walter Scott’s Guy Mannering (1815) and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped (1886). A more recent racy account was published in America by Roger Ekirch, Birthright – The Story that Inspired Kidnapped (2010).

Dunmain House remains a private family home. The Annesley family sold Camolin Park in 1852, the house was demolished in the 20th century, and Camolin Park is now a national forest.

Camolin Park is now a national forest park (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Canon Patrick Comerford lectures in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This feature was published in the ‘Diocesan Magazine’ (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory) in March 2016. An earlier version was published in the ‘Church Review’ (Dublin and Glendalough) in February 2016.