May 142009
Cobh Cathedral
The Cathedral of Saint Colman is a large, elaborately detailed neo-Gothic building. It is prominently sited overlooking Cork harbour and visible for quite a distance. Local people are generally very proud of it and tourists often climb the steep hill to admire and photograph it. The historian Emmet Larkin has called it “the most ambitious building project undertaken by the Church in nineteenth-century Ireland”, and Frederick O’Dwyer states that it was “certainly the most costly Irish ecclesiastical building of the Victorian era”. Cobh Cathedral probably enjoys the most advantageous position of any Irish cathedral. Because of its superb hillside site, it dominates the quay in a most imposing way, standing proudly clear of all neighbouring buildings. The exterior detail is intricate, elegant and well proportioned in a way typical of French sophistication. Its south front faces out to the sea, and viewed from the town, it bristles with flying buttresses, gargoyles, spirelets and pinnacles, giving the impression of a great Bucentaur sailing in state along the horizon. Ireland travel help.
Cobh GPS travel destinations: 51° 51′ 5.4″ N, 8° 17′ 36.82″ W
