St Patrick's Cathedral Armagh

St Patrick's Cathedral Armagh is the pre-eminent Roman Catholic cathedral in Ireland. It has undergone continuous development since construction began in 1840 and that development has continued with the liturgical reordering of the interior. Rooney & McConville were appointed to design the liturgical refurbishment as part of the design team for the fabric led by Gregory Architects.

Two aspirations guided the reordering - to consider this latest work as a continuation of the cathedral's development and to fully express the function of a cathedral as a 'chair church', symbolic of the pastoral and teaching imperatives of a bishop. Informing these aspirations was a desire to connect with the past but not to uncritically reproduce it.

The previous interior was really a large parish church rather than a cathedral. We sought to introduce new elements making it worthy of a cathedral. The cathedra was relocated to a central presiding location at the rear of the sanctuary. An ambulatory surrounding the sanctuary was introduced, as was a Marian chapel in its traditional location at the east end.

The altar is located at the architectural centre of the cathedral in space large enough to accommodate diocesan liturgies. The cross axis formed by the trancepts, shown here, leads to the Reservation Chapel, appropriately acknowledging the Reserved Sacrament, as is traditional in a cathedral, in a location that is suitable dignified encouraging private prayer, but not dominating the sanctuary.