Construction of the Roman Catholic St. Eugene’s Cathedral in Londonderry began in 1851 as a response to the end of the potato famine, which claimed around a million Irish lives in the 1840s.
It was dedicated to St Eugene in 1873 by Bishop Kelly, who is remembered in the cathedral’s handsome east window, added in 1891.
A popular stop-off point during Londonderry’s European Heritage Open Days, it is the mother church of the Derry diocese, which stretches from Malin Head to Omagh and Killygordon to Bellaghy.
Located in Francis Street, the cathedral cost more than £40,000 to build, the money raised locally and with the help of supporters in America. The cash ran out before the tower and spire were constructed – these were eventually added in 1903.
It was built to the designs of JJ McCarthy in a relatively straightforward Gothic style. It is a fine architectural example, with its six-bay nave arcades supported on octagonal shafts, clerestory, aisles and a short chancel flanked by chapels on the north and south sides.
A grotto was built in the cathedral grounds in 1928 in honour of Bishop Charles McHugh’s devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes and to thank him for organising the first Irish National Pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1912.
The cathedral’s bells are rung every night at 9pm as a reminder of Ireland’s Penal Laws, which were in force from 1691 until the early 19th Century. The laws forbade Catholics from attending mass, subjecting them to a 9pm curfew.
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