By Michael Brabazon
One of the half-forgotten national historical monuments, saved from ruination twice in the twentieth century, standing proudly on Thomas Street in the Liberties of Dublin is the Georgian church of St Catherine of Alexandria. Unfortunately, as well as the structure of the church itself, its history has been neglected, a situation about to be remedied. A group of archaeologists and historians are at present taking a closer look, assembling what is known and what may have been missed, and assessing what could be further researched.
St Catherine’s was founded c. 1200 and was part of the St Thomas’s Abbey complex, the only royal abbey in Ireland. Much effort has been put into researching the abbey and its history, the results presented in Áine Foley’s The Abbey of St Thomas the Martyr, Dublin (2017), which contains a short section on St Catherine’s. The present church was reconstructed in the mid- to late 1760s on the site of the medieval church, but smaller in total area. Although the façade on Thomas Street gives the rebuild its Georgian character, there are possibly extant parts of the old church. Indeed, one member of the renovation team in the late 1990s speculated that part of the medieval wall is sandwiched within the eighteenth-century front. If correct, that would establish the building line of the original St Catherine’s on that side.
Sir William Brabazon, who was sent to Ireland in 1534 as part of the Tudor recolonisation establishment and was gifted St Thomas’s Abbey by King Henry VIII, was interred in the crypt beneath the chancel (at the north end) after his death on a military campaign in the north of the country in 1552. His lead coffin was joined by those of his wife Elizabeth Clifford, his eldest son Edward, 1st Baron Ardee, ancestor of the earls of Meath, and his youngest son, Anthony Brabazon of Ballinasloe, who covertly reverted to Catholicism. There are reportedly nine lead coffins in the crypt, including that of the 2nd earl of Fingall (of a Brabazon mother), who died from his wounds at the Battle of Rathmines in 1649 fighting against Michael Jones’s Parliamentarian army. The presence of coffins was verified c. 1986 shortly before the crypt entrance was sealed by Dublin Corporation. Assuming that the Georgians did not rebuild the crypt, the question arises as to how much of the chancel end of the church is earlier than the eighteenth century. If the crypt pre-existed Sir William’s interment, the probability is that it is part of the original medieval church, but if it was constructed for his burial it will be Tudor.
There are ‘odd’ features in the exterior chancel and abutting walls that suggest they in part pre-date the eighteenth-century reconstruction. One tantalising but very brief building record for 1659/60 mentions a ‘new gable wall’. In most building projects there are financial constraints, and St Catherine’s in the 1760s was no exception. The planned steeple was scrapped and the still-extant truncated bell-tower was erected in its place owing to lack of funding. It is not hard to imagine architects and builders making the most of what was still solid in the old structure.
There have been archaeological excavations around the church, and human bones were discovered in the 1990s renovation work in the interior, beneath the floor. In 1552, the same year as Sir William Brabazon’s interment, the graveyard at the rear of the church was opened for public use and burials in the church forbidden. What happened to any pre-Brabazon remains in the crypt if it dates from the medieval period?
Jumping forward to recent times, after St Catherine’s was deconsecrated in 1966 and soon after handed over to Dublin Corporation, public renovation works were undertaken, but none of those records, covering the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, has so far come to light. The derelict church was sold in 1991 for one punt to City Outreach for Renewal and Evangelism (CORE) and, following a massive restoration programme, was reconsecrated in 1998. There were surveying reports but nothing of real archaeological import. All in all, the records are lost, misplaced or scant. Archaeology can involve digging through paperwork as well as earth and stone!
Revd Eoghan Heaslip, the Church of Ireland minister of St Catherine’s, has quite rightly remarked that the church is more than the material structure; it is the ongoing community of worshippers spanning eight centuries. If the church is reclassified as multi-period rather than simply Georgian, that would tangibly add to the sense of community continuity. Indeed, from any perspective, an extant part of St Thomas’s Abbey complex is an exciting prospect and one that surely has to be pursued.
Michael Brabazon is a member of the St Catherine’s research team.