St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and one of Christianity’s most widely known figures. Although the dates cannot be fixed with certainty, it’s widely believed he began his religious training during the second half of the fifth century. He studied for more than 15 years before becoming ordained as a priest and then travelled around the country converting the Irish people to Christianity. Nowadays, Irish priests study and are ordained in a college named in his honour.
St. Patrick’s College Maynooth is the National Seminary for Ireland and is located 15 miles from Dublin. The college was officially established as the Roman Catholic College of St. Patrick in 1795, after the then Secretary of State Thomas Pelham introduced a bill for the foundation of a Catholic college.
Between 1875 and 1891, the college chapel was built using the architecture of J.J. McCarthy, who was Professor of Architecture of the Catholic University. Postponed for nearly 100 years due to a lack of money, the chapel’s completion was funded by the contributions of the Irish people. This was quite a feat given
that the country was still recovering from the Great Famine and the foundation of the State had not even taken place yet. Today, the chapel is widely celebrated for its stunning stained glass windows, mosaic marbled floor, massive organ and the row upon row of carved oak choir-stalls that fill the whole church.
To mark St. Patrick’s Day for 2011, Steve Simpson has designed a stamp based on a stone carving of St. Patrick at the entrance to the spire of this great chapel.
Technical details:
Visit An Post‘s online shop.
Source
The collector. Irish stamps, 2011. Pag. 19-20.
|#