First woman to be elected dean of Kilkenny cathedral

THE CHURCH of Ireland has appointed a woman to a senior position in the Diocese of Cashel and Ossory, which it says had “been male-dominated since the Middle Ages”.

Katharine Poulton (48) will be installed as dean of St Canice’s Cathedral in Kilkenny and will take up the post after Easter.

Ms Poulton made ecclesiastical history as the first women to be ordained a deacon in the Church of Ireland in 1987.

A church spokesman, Herbie Sharman, said she was “the first woman to be elected to the office” and “only the second female dean in the Church of Ireland”.

The Rev Canon Poulton is currently serving as bishop’s curate of the inner city Dublin parish of St George and St Thomas based on Cathal Brugha Street.

She is also a chaplain to Mountjoy Prison and the Mater and Temple Street hospitals. She will relocate from Killiney in south Co Dublin, where she lives with her two teenage children and husband Ian, who is rector of Ballybrack parish.

She succeeds the Rev Norman Lynas, who has left Kilkenny to become a canon in residence in Hamilton on the island of Bermuda.

Ms Poulton was born in Belfast, the daughter of a priest of the Down and Dromore diocese, and moved to the Republic in 1999.

Yesterday, she said she felt “privileged and challenged” by her new appointment and was looking forward to life in Kilkenny. She said the job came with “a fabulous house” (the deanery) and “a beautiful cathedral”.

Last month, the US ambassador to Ireland visited her predecessor at St Canice’s Cathedral to see the tomb of bishop John Kearney, reputedly an ancestor of US president Barack Obama.

The ambassador’s visit has fuelled speculation that Mr Obama may visit Kilkenny and the cathedral if he comes to Ireland.

Commenting on the prospect of hosting a visit by Mr Obama, Ms Poulton joked that it was “just as well I went and bought two new coats at the sales in Clerys and Arnotts”.

The Church of Ireland has 390,000 members – 275,000 in Northern Ireland and 115,000 in the Republic. Cashel and Ossory is one of 12 dioceses and covers Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford and areas of Laois and Wicklow.

The bishop, who is based in Kilkenny, is the Rev Michael Burrows.