Saint T's Feast Day!

In our family we celebrate our children's Feast day of their patron saint. It's not a huge ordeal they just get to pick out dinner for their special day. T's Feast day was the end of January so he got to pick where he wanted to go for dinner. After changing his mind about 50 times 5 times he decided on Eddie Rockets. If you have ever been to a Johnny Rockets - its pretty much the exact same place! I honestly thought they were owned by the same company, but they are not. 

We had our American meal  - hot dogs, grilled cheese, and buffalo wings. You can't buy hot dogs here but they have them at Eddie Rockets on the children's menu. Afterwards we went to mass at St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral which is just called the Pro-Cathedral by the locals. Remember here they have nicknames for all the churches and rarely call them by their names. 

St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral

The Pro-Cathedral is the seat for the Archbishop of Dublin. The two main cathedrals - Christ Church and St. Patrick's used to be Catholic Cathedrals but are now the Church of Ireland (Anglican)…thanks to Henry VIII. They were never given back to the Catholic Church. In 1814 a committee was formed by the Bishop to build a new cathedral for the church. The pro-cathedral was finished in 1825. It was built on the site of an old 12th century Cistercian Abbey. It was never intended to be other than a temporary acting cathedral until funds were available to build a full cathedral. It has been suggested several times that the Church of Ireland, which has a small membership, might hand over one of its cathedrals back to the Catholic Church. But this has never happened. 

The pro-cathedral has been used for many of the President of Ireland's religious ceremony for their inauguration, if they were Catholic. State funerals for major figures have been held here too. Most of the Archbishops and Cardinals of Dublin have been buried here and Venerable Matt Talbot was baptized here. 

The inside of the Pro-Cathedral after Mass

Why is it called a Pro-Cathedral?
St. Mary's is not an official cathedral, even though it functions as one. Why? Back when Christ Church Cathedral was built, the Pope  consecrated it as the Catholic cathedral of Dublin. Although Christ Church has been the Church of Ireland for centuries, no Pope has ever revoked its original designation. Since a city can only have one Catholic cathedral, St. Mary's cannot enjoy the status until Christ Church's is revoked. The Pro-cathedral as its called owes its origins to the anti-Catholic Penal Laws, which restricted Catholicism until the 19th century.