Cathedral of St. Eunan and St. Columba, Catholic cathedral in Letterkenny, Ireland.
The Cathedral of St. Eunan and St. Columba is a Catholic cathedral in Letterkenny, County Donegal, built in Victorian neo-Gothic style between 1890 and 1900. It has a 73-metre spire and walls of white sandstone from Mountcharles, carried to the site bucket by bucket by townspeople. The interior is furnished in oak, with a marble pulpit by Pearse Brothers of Dublin.
St Eunan's Cathedral was commissioned by Cardinal Patrick Joseph O'Donnell, then Bishop of Raphoe and, at 32 in 1888, the youngest bishop in the world. Dublin architect William Hague, a protégé of Pugin, designed it; after Hague's death his partner T. F. McNamara continued the work. It opened on 16 June 1901, built at a cost of £300,000, and was renovated in 1985 to conform to the Second Vatican Council's liturgical requirements.
The cathedral is named for Saints Adamnán and Columba, and its Great Arch depicts scenes from their lives. The stained glass in the sanctuary and Lady Chapel, made by the Mayer firm of Munich, shows thirteen scenes from the life of Jesus. Devotions are held on the Sundays of May and October at 7pm.
The cathedral stands on Castle Street, opposite Conwal Parish Church, with its 73 m spire visible from much of Letterkenny. The sandstone exterior was cleaned and repointed in July 2001. Devotions are held on the Sundays of May and October at 7.00pm, so expect a fuller church then.
The sanctuary lamp is solid silver and weighs over 1,500 ounces. Willie Pearse, later executed for his part in the 1916 Easter Rising, carved some of the sculptures inside the cathedral.
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