SHANDON CHURCH
From Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)
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Description of County Cork | Shandon Church | Queenstown Cathedral | Blarney Castle | Cloyne Cathedral | View of Queenstown | Glengariff Castle | Patrick's Bridge | The Mall | The Square, Fermoy | Cork Map
SHANDON CHURCH.—The Church of St. Anne, Shandon, standing on an eminence on the north side of Cork City, though unpretentious, and in fact somewhat bizarre, has acquired a prominence second to no church or cathedral in Ireland. This it owes to the genius of Father Prout (Rev. Francis O'Mahoney), who immortalized it in his inimitable lyric of "The Bells of Shandon." The church has no style of architecture, and has a curiously disproportionate steeple, or rather tower, which has caused the structure to be aptly likened to a pepper caster. It was built in 1722, and two of its sides are of hewn limestone, and the other two of red sandstone—the one taken from the old Franciscan Abbey, and the other from the ruins of Lord Barry's Castle. The church possesses a chime of sweet-toned bells, however, and the memories of their music followed the genial Father Prout through life, and every Corkonian repeats with him:
"On this I ponder
Where'er I wander,
And thus grow fonder,
Sweet Cork, of thee.
"With thy bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee."
Shandon Church
Francis S. Mahony (Father Prout)
Description of County Cork | Shandon Church | Queenstown Cathedral | Blarney Castle | Cloyne Cathedral | View of Queenstown | Glengariff Castle | Patrick's Bridge | The Mall | The Square, Fermoy | Cork Map