In an homily on the Feast of St Kevin, 2 June 2024, Dr Dermot Farrell, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, announced:

“I am asking the Holy Father to designate St Mary’s as the Cathedral for Dublin…This will involve having St Mary’s and St Andrew’s as twin pillars for the worthy celebration of Catholic life in Dublin.”

There is at present no Roman Catholic cathedral in the Republic of Ireland’s capital city, and there has not been one since the Protestant Reformation. Dublin possesses the Roman Catholic Pro Cathedral of St Mary, and  two Cathedrals of the Church of Ireland, Cathedral of the Holy Trinity (a.k.a. Christ Church Cathedral) and  St Patrick’s Cathedral.

Wikipedia notes:

“Even though Christ Church has been in the possession of the Church of Ireland for nearly five hundred years, it is still viewed by the Roman Catholic Church as the primary official Dublin cathedral, since it was so designated by the pope at the request of the then Archbishop of Dublin, St Laurence O’Toole in the 12th century. Unless the (current) pope either formally revokes Christchurch’s designation or grants cathedral status to another church, the main Roman Catholic church in Dublin will continue to be designated a “pro-cathedral” (meaning provisional or acting cathedral), a title officially given to St Mary’s Church in 1886, though it used that title unofficially since the 1820s”.

This recent news represents a development in the plans of the diocese which in 2023 it was announced that the Pro-Cathedral would lose its current status and become a basilica, while St Andrew’s Church, Westland Row, south of the Liffey, would become the city’s cathedral.

[Updated: 6 June 2024 at 11:46].