Saint Patrick's Cathedral

Archbishop John Comyn raised St Patrick's to cathedral status in 1191, unusually for a city that already had a cathedral in Christ Church. The building went up between 1191 and 1270. It lived through hard times, including Cromwell's soldiers stabling their horses in the nave, and owes much of its present look to a major restoration in the 1860s paid for by Benjamin Guinness, whose statue stands outside the south door. The spire was added in 1749.

Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, was dean here from 1713 to 1745, and his grave and epitaph lie in the cathedral beside those of his friend Stella. The cathedral choir school, founded in 1432, supplied singers for the first performance of Handel's Messiah in 1742.

Look for the Door of Reconciliation: in 1492 the Earl of Kildare cut a hole in it and put his arm through to shake hands with the Earl of Ormond, ending their feud and giving English the phrase chancing your arm. More than 500 people are buried in the cathedral.