Christ Church Cathedral

Dublin's oldest medieval cathedral, founded by Vikings in 1031, today the seat of the Anglican Archbishop of Dublin.

Christ Church Cathedral is the older of Dublin's two medieval cathedrals, with origins around 1031 when the Viking king Sitriuc Silkenbeard founded a wooden church on the site. The present stone structure was built in the 12th and 13th centuries and heavily restored in the Victorian era. The cathedral serves as the seat of the Archbishop of Dublin in the Church of Ireland (Anglican). Its crypt — one of the oldest surviving in Ireland — holds historical artefacts including the mummified remains of a cat and a mouse famously found wedged inside an organ pipe. Christ Church stands in Dublin's historic core, close to Dublin Castle and within easy walking distance of the Temple Bar quarter.