STREET, George E. & SEYMOUR, Edward. The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, commonly called Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin [FINE DECORATED VELLUM BINDING]

An Account of the Restoration of the Fabric by George Edmund Street ... with an Historical Sketch of the Cathedral by Edward Seymour, M.A., Precentor of Christ Church Cathedral. Illustrated with twenty four plates (including steel and wood engravings, and chromolithographs). London: Sutton Sharpe & Co., 1882. Large folio. pp. xii, 173, 24 (plates). Bound in full vellum gilt, covers blocked in red and gilt to a panel design enclosing a cross with the insignia of Christ Church Cathedral in centre, and two armorial shields at head and foot of cross; the whole adorned with gilt shamrocks and red floral designs. Top edge gilt. Name clipped from front endpaper. A fine copy of a rare and desirable item. €850 Donat, the first bishop of Dublin, with financial help from Sitric, the Danish King of Dublin, built a cathedral on the site of the present one on a hill above the Liffey. It is generally believed that this was where St. Patrick baptised his first converts. In 1170 Dublin was captured from the Danes by the Normans and Strongbow (Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke) and St. Laurence O’Toole (uncle to Strongbow’s wife, Eva) joined in a scheme for the rebuilding of the Cathedral. Over the centuries there were many renovations, and by the middle of the last century it was in a poor state of repair.

In 1871 Street, a champion of Gothic and a leading ecclesiastical architect was engaged in the restorationproject, which was funded by Henry Roe, the distiller. He completely gutted the building, tearing down walls of the old structure, rebuilding and refacing Christ Church, with the addition of the Synod Hall which was linked to the Cathedral by an attractive covered footbridge over Winetavern Street. This work deals at length with the transformation of the medieval building which resulted in its present Gothic magnificence. At that time, Street was also engaged in restoration at York Minster, Salisbury, Carlisle and St. Brigid’s, Kildare. In 1874 he received the gold medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects and was elected its President in 1881. An important work in a magnificent decorated vellum binding. [L1 Bottom]