Architect:
Interior Access
The interior of the cathedral shows its medieval origins with its thick walls and piers supporting the wooden roof. The walls are relatively plain, having a rubble stone surface - any carvings or embellishments being kept for various screens and memorials set into the walls. Despite the thickness of the walls, the church is remarkably bright inside - due mainly to the larger windows inserted during various Victorian 'restorations'. The building has many memorials on the walls of various luminaries and worthies from the vicinity.
Notable features of the interior are the carved misericords in the choir. These miserichords are unique in Ireland as the only surviving pre-Elizabethan carvings, and probably date from 1480 when Bishop Folan restored St. Mary's. Of the 21 carvings, 16 are different, representing such mediaeval emblems as a two-legged one-horned goat, a griffin, a sphinx, a wild boar, an angel, a head resembling Henry IV, a dragon biting its tail, antelopes with intertwined necks, a swan, an eagle, the Lion of Judah with a dragon, and a cockatrice holding its tail.
