St Patrick's Cathedral
Ireland's national cathedral has never had a bishop — that role belongs to the rival church 400 metres up the road.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Dublin offline.
Two Church of Ireland cathedrals, one city, one diocese, and a medieval cold war settled only by a six-point treaty in 1300. St Patrick's eventually won the national title in 1870, but Christ Church kept the archbishop's throne. The dean's office here stretches back to 1219; its most famous occupant was Jonathan Swift.
What to look for
- The dean's office — continuous since 1219, and held at its peak by satirist Jonathan Swift
- The proximity paradox: Christ Church, the senior cathedral that outranked St Patrick's under the 1300 Pacis Compositio, sits just 400 metres away
- The chapter's national reach — representatives drawn from all 12 dioceses of the Church of Ireland, not just Dublin
Walk to Christ Church in under five minutes to see the cathedral that technically outranked this one for over 500 years.
St Patrick's Cathedral is one of 35 sights worth the detour in Dublin, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Dublin pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Dublin
- Aviva StadiumOne 51,711-seat bowl jointly owned by rugby and football — two governing bodies, one ground, no separate home for either.
- Dublin CastleThe river that gave Dublin its name still flows beneath your feet — and the building above it ran Ireland for 750 years.
- Croke ParkThe fourth-largest stadium in Europe holds 82,300 people — almost entirely for sports most of the world has never watched.
- National Library of IrelandIreland's paper memory — manuscripts, photographs, and newspapers free to open on the spot.
- Spire of DublinA 120-metre stainless-steel pin planted on the exact spot where an IRA bomb in 1966 — and a controlled demolition six days later — erased Nelson's Pillar.
- Leinster HouseA private ducal palace built on Dublin's wrong side of town in 1745 — the gamble paid off, and now it is Ireland's parliament.