St Fin Barre's Cathedral

The cathedral of the Church of Ireland diocese of Cork, built between 1865 and 1879 to a design by William Burges in a richly carved French Gothic style. The west façade is the city's most ornate piece of architecture — three carved portals topped by twin spires — and the interior is unusually intact: Burges designed everything from the floor mosaics to the embroidered altar cloths himself, and most of it survives.

The acoustic is excellent and lunchtime organ recitals are held regularly. The cathedral sits on the south bank of the Lee at the spot where Cork's seventh-century founder St Fin Barre is said to have built his original monastery.

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A story
William Burges, the architect, included a golden angel on the east roof of the cathedral with the prophesy that on the morning of the world's last day, the angel would blow her trumpet to wake Cork. She is still there, still waiting.