St Patrick's Cathedral

St Patrick's Cathedral is Ireland's national cathedral and its largest church, a great Gothic building on the edge of the Liberties that has stood, in one form or another, since 1191. Tradition holds that St Patrick himself baptised converts at a well on this spot, which lay outside the walls of medieval Dublin, and the cathedral was built as a rival to Christ Church inside the city — which is how Dublin came to have two medieval cathedrals a few hundred metres apart. Today it belongs to the Church of Ireland and remains a living place of worship with daily services and one of the oldest choirs in these islands. Inside, the long nave is lined with memorials, regimental banners and monuments, the most famous of them connected to Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels, who was Dean here for more than thirty years in the eighteenth century. Swift is buried in the nave beside Stella, the woman he loved, and you can read his own fierce Latin epitaph, which Yeats called the greatest epitaph in history. Other highlights include the huge Boyle monument, the door with a hole cut through it during a feud in 1492 — a peace offering in which one side literally chanced his arm, giving English a phrase — and the medieval floor tiles. Outside, St Patrick's Park is a lovely green space with a literary parade of plaques. Visiting is by ticket, with an audio guide; Sunday sightseeing is very limited, and a modest dress code applies.

The building you see owes much to the Guinness family. By the nineteenth century the cathedral was in poor repair, and in the 1860s Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness paid for a sweeping restoration that rebuilt large parts of it; a statue of him stands outside. That restoration is why some purists find the interior a little too Victorian, but the scale, the light through the windows and the sheer accumulation of history make it deeply atmospheric. Look for the memorial to the Irish soldiers of the First World War, the brass plaques of the Order of St Patrick, the knights whose banners still hang in the choir, and the chancing-your-arm door, displayed in the nave.

Visiting well: buy timed tickets online, which include a self-guided audio tour. Sightseeing hours are generous from Monday to Saturday, but on Sundays the cathedral is mainly given over to worship and tourist access is restricted to a short window, so plan a weekday. Services are open to all free of charge, and choral evensong, sung by the cathedral choir on many weekday afternoons in term time, is one of the most beautiful free experiences in Dublin. As a working church, the cathedral asks visitors to dress modestly — no bare shoulders, shorts or hats inside — and to respect services; photography rules may apply. Allow about an hour.

Around it: St Patrick's sits at the meeting point of the medieval city and the Liberties. Christ Church Cathedral is a ten-minute walk north, the Guinness Storehouse fifteen minutes west, and Marsh's Library, Ireland's oldest public library, is tucked into the cathedral close next door, a time capsule of dark oak shelves and caged reading alcoves. The surrounding streets are home to new distilleries, vintage shops and good-value cafés. Seeing both cathedrals on the same morning makes sense — they tell complementary stories — and you can finish with a walk west along Thomas Street to the Storehouse. Music runs deep here. In 1742 the cathedral's choir, together with that of Christ Church, sang at the first performance of Handel's Messiah, given in a music hall on Fishamble Street a short walk to the north, and the cathedral's choral tradition continues in services that are free and open to everyone; check the service times before you go, as sightseeing pauses during worship. Next door, Marsh's Library, opened in 1707 and barely changed since, completes the visit.