Kildare Cathedral 2.95

The Cathedral Church of St. Brigid, Kildare in Kildare, County Kildare is one of two cathedrals in the United Dioceses of Meath and Kildare of the Church of Ireland in Ireland. It is in the ecclesiastical province of Dublin.HistoryEarly historyIt is said that in the year 480 Saint Brigid arrived in Kildare with her nuns. Her original abbey church may have been a simple wooden building. Soon after her death in 523 A.D., a costly shrine was erected in her honour in a new and larger building. For many centuries Kildare maintained a unique Irish experiment; the Abbess ruled over a double community of women and men, and the Bishop was subordinate in jurisdiction to the abbess.Between the years 835 and 998 the cathedral was devastated approximately 16 times, so that when the Norman, Ralph of Bristol, became bishop in 1223 it was virtually in ruins. Between then and 1230 it was largely rebuilt, likely in the years following 1223, and probably by Ralph of Bristol who was made Bishop of the see in 1222 and died in 1232.Still semi-ruinous by 1500, it was derelict by 1649. In 1686 it was partially rebuilt.Demise and resurrectionThe Cathedral fell into disrepair following the 16th century English Reformation, and was ruined during the 17th century Irish Confederate Wars.A near complete restoration of the building was undertaken during the 19th century by George Edmund Street He started restoration work on the Cathedral in 1875, and work continued after his death in 1881 until it was complete in 1896. These works included a new north trancept, new chancel, and new west wall as well as rebuilding three sides of the square tower. A new oak roof (which is supported on stone corbels) was built into the wall buttresses.