Our music venue of the month for March is, rather fittingly, St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin!
The most famous and most visited cathedral in Dublin, St. Patrick’s boasts a great acoustic and has a long history of welcoming choirs with sacred repertoires from the UK.
In fact, the cathedral itself has an incredibly rich musical heritage – the cathedral’s choir school is the oldest in Ireland, having been founded in 1432. And the cathedral’s organ is one of the largest in Ireland, boasting over 4,000 pipes! Restored in 1963, parts of the organ actually date back to 1695.
The largest church in Ireland, St. Patrick’s became an Anglican cathedral in 1537, after the English Reformation and it is now the National Cathedral of the Church of Ireland.
Saint Patrick himself is said to have baptised Christian converts on the site of the cathedral’s Lady Chapel over 1500 years ago, and the cathedral is now one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Ireland.
There has been a church on the site since the 10th century, and construction began on the current cathedral building in the 13th century. And in the 18th century, famous Irish author Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels) took over as dean of the cathedral.
If you’re a choir planning a school music tour to Dublin, we would definitely recommend that you perform at this wonderful, historic cathedral. Not only will you be certain of a large, appreciative audience, but you’ll also be surrounded by Irish history and culture – and what could be more magical than that?
If you would like to find out more about this opportunity for your choir, please don’t hesitate to contact us.