Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Ascend the terraces at the choir end of the cathedral, where the main altar once stood.
Stand on the gravestones (of the 16th-century rich and famous) with your back to the east
wall (where the narrow windows have crumbled away) and look back down toward the
nave. The right wall of the choir is filled with graceful Gothic windows, while the sol-
id left wall hides Cormac's Chapel (which would have blocked any sunlight). The line of
stone supports on the left wall once held the long, wooden balcony where the vicars sang.
Closertothealtar,highonthesamewall,isasmall,rectangularwindowcalledthe“leper's
squint”—which allowed unsightly lepers to view the altar during Mass without offending
the congregation.
The grand
wall tomb
on the left contains the remains of archbishop Miler Magrath, the
“scoundrel of Cashel,” who lived to be 100. From 1570 to 1622, Magrath was the Protest-
ant archbishop of Cashel who simultaneously profited from his previous position as Cath-
olic bishop of Down. He married twice, had lots of kids, confiscated the ornate tomb lid
here from another bishop's grave, and converted back to Catholicism on his deathbed.
• Walk back down the nave and turn left into the south transept.
