The first Mass since Tudor times was celebrated at St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin on Sunday. Mass was last celebrated at the nearby Christ Church Cathedral in 1690, prior to the Battle of the Boyne.
Last Sunday's Mass followed a request from 23 French Catholic tourists who apparently had no knowledge they were making history. They made their request to the cathedral authorities through their tour company, the Joe O'Reilly Ireland Group of Blarney, Co Cork.
The Mass was celebrated in the cathedral's Lady Chapel by a Father Goujeon who was travelling with the group. The last French people to use the cathedral in this way were Huguenots who also held their services at the Lady Chapel for 150 years after they fled France in 1666.
Dean Robert MacCarthy of St Patrick's last night expressed his delight at the event and at being able to make the cathedral available to such pilgrims. He hoped to offer "similar hospitality to any similar such groups".
In an Irish Times interview in November the dean initiated controversy when he said he was "considering offering the Roman Catholic Church and one of the nonconformist churches (the Methodist Church) the facility to have services of their own on weekdays". He said "some of my Northern colleagues may be a little sensitive about it" but he saw it as a way of broadening the cathedral's ministry for tourists, many of whom would not be Anglican. "Visitors are not just gawkers," he said.
Dean MacCarthy later wrote to the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Desmond Connell, proposing that Mass might be celebrated in the cathedral on weekdays for Catholic tourists.
Dr Connell declined the offer. He said it was "difficult to understand why this proposal was made and how it might be implemented". He added that "tourists come to the cathedral throughout the day with a view to visiting a historic building and its monuments and with very limited time at their disposal.
"Should they wish to participate in the Mass, ample opportunities are already available in the city churches, even in the vicinity of the cathedral. I declined the dean's proposal out of consideration for these circumstances, for the importance of the reverence we observe towards the Mass, and for the sensitivities already expressed in comments by members of the Church of Ireland."
Elaborating on the latter point, a spokesman for Dr Connell said letters to The Irish Times following Dean MacCarthy's interview had shown "a wide difference of opinion" within the Church of Ireland on whether Mass should be celebrated at St Patrick's.
Dean MacCarthy expressed disappointment at Dr Connell's response and said the archbishop had not addressed the chief reason for the proposal - "to make a small start in sharing St Patrick's with the wider Christian community." He said Dr Connell was "ignoring, in a sense, the nub of the thing".
Commenting later on the proposal, the Church of Ireland Bishop of Cashel and Ossory, the Rt Rev John Neill, said Dr Connell had been "very gracious in his response, and an apology is owed to him for the manner in which he was placed in an impossible situation".
Dr Connell, who is currently in Rome, was unavailable for comment last night on the Mass at St Patrick's.
