During our visit to Ireland, we made the acquaintance of Strongbow.

That is, the tomb of Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, Lord of Leinster, Justiciar of Ireland, which can be found in the nave of Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin.

Strongbow was an important figure in Irish history, being one of the first and certain most forceful of the Anglo-Normans to show up in the 12th century to take over the joint. Or most of it, anyway, which they no doubt saw as carrying on the profitable work of their predecessors who conquered Saxon England.

Except that the effigy and tomb aren’t actually his. As the cathedral itself notes: “In 1562, the nave roof vaulting collapsed and Strongbow’s tomb was smashed, the current tomb being a contemporary replacement from Drogheda. The cathedral was in ruins and emergency rebuilding took place immediately. This temporary solution lasted until the 1870s!”

Centuries pass, things get lost or kicked around. Strongbow didn’t found the cathedral – that was the work of the Viking Sitric Silkenbeard, he of another fine sobriquet, ca. 1028 – but the Anglo-Norman enlarged it into a stone structure.

We walked by Christ Church Cathedral our first day in town, after visiting St. Patrick’s. One major church per day is usually enough, so we didn’t come back until the next day. The cathedral took its current form in (no surprise) the 19th century, thus becoming another uncertain amalgam of Gothic and Gothic Revival, with Romanesque elements thrown in for grins.

The flooring is 19th century, though perhaps a recreation of earlier designs. Whatever the case, I liked it a lot.

Something unique to Christ Church for reasons I haven’t discerned, and maybe don’t quite need to know: Floor tiles showing foxes dressed as pilgrims, complete with hats, walking sticks and back packs.

The figures exist elsewhere, too, in what look to be newer iterations.

The cathedral has a sizable crypt, something St. Patrick’s doesn’t, presumably because of the water table, though the two aren’t that far apart.

A number of artifacts are on display, such as worn statues of Charles I and Charles II.

Also, the cathedral’s copy of Magna Carta, which isn’t a distinct document, but part of a lawyer’s handbook probably brought to the church ca. 1300 that contained copies of many important legal documents, including important English statues of the 13th century.

Christ Church Cathedral, formally the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, is curiously one of the Church of Ireland’s two cathedrals in Dublin. It isn’t entirely clear why the second one (St. Patrick’s) was built, but built it was, and eventually the church sorted things out by making Christ Church the cathedral of the Dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough, while St. Patrick’s is the national cathedral.

To make things even more interesting, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin nominally claims Christ Church as his cathedral, though uses St. Mary’s, elsewhere in Dublin (we didn’t make it there) as his pro-cathedral.

Organized religion wouldn’t be nearly so interesting if it were more organized.