An Irishman's Diary

IN church calendars, today’s date is devoted to what must surely be the only saint ever to have a type of firework named after her. The Catherine-wheel is so-called from the instrument of torture on which, according to legend, the eponymous 4th century virgin was condemned to die by the Roman emperor Maximinus. That was before the bonds tying her to it broke miraculously. Whereupon she was beheaded instead.

Brewer's Dictionarysays she was punished for having "adroitly defended the Christian faith" in a public debate with the emperor's "heathen philosophers". It even puts a date on the event: which supposedly happened 1,700 years ago, in AD 310. But the modern Catholic Church was sufficiently doubtful about Catherine's historicity to remove her feast-day from its calendar in 1969, before later restoring it as an optional holiday.

Because of her erudition, real or legendary, Catherine is a patron saint of philosophers and jurists; and for obvious reasons, her portfolio of responsibilities also includes wheel-makers. Somewhat less obviously she is – or at least used to be – one of several saints young women could pray to when looking for a husband. In France, women were even allowed to take matters into their own hands on November 25th, by proposing.

The associated prayer has a certain wit about it. One version puts the demand as follows: "A husband, St Catherine; a good one, St Catherine./But anyone's better than no one, St Catherine./A husband, St Catherine; young, St Catherine,/Handsome, St Catherine, nice, Catherine,/ Soon, St Catherine!" Which, as one commentator put it, "sounds like Thomas Aquinas writing for Fiddler on the Roof".

THE SAINT’S cult reached its height in the Middle Ages, back to which the Anglican St Catherine’s Church in Dublin’s Thomas Street can be traced. Originally a chapel-of-ease for the abbey of St Thomas, the site has had a church of some sort since the 12th century. But the present building – described by Maurice Craig as having “the finest facade of any church in Dublin” – dates from the 1760s.

Like the saint’s reputation, it has experienced ups and downs. An intended spire was never added due to lack of funds. And although the interior was restored in 1877, St Catherine’s later suffered, like many Church of Ireland parishes, from a dwindling congregation. By the late 1960s, it was closed and deconsecrated, whereafter it became an occasional concert venue, hosting Christy Moore and the Chieftains among others.

Then it fell to a period of neglect and vandalism during which it was threatened with ruin, until in 1990, Dublin Corporation offered it for sale as part of an inner city development plan. A local evangelical group took on the job of renovation and, in 1998, the building became a church again.

The history of the area around it has been no less colourful. Even today, Thomas Street remains a home to footpath traders. But with its proximity to the old western entrance to the city – St James’s Gate – it was long an important farmers’ market, especially at Christmas. In the early 18th century, the three days from December 22nd saw a huge trade there in agricultural produce, stretching from James’s Street in the west to Cornmarket in the east, with St Catherine’s at its centre.

There was an associated carnival too, although the entertainment wasn't always legal. On Christmas Eve, the revelry of drunken gangs often extended to wholesale larceny of the merchandise. Bloodshed was not uncommon as stall-holders and others defended their property. And as The Irish Timesrecalled a century later, the "mounted police" sometimes had to restore order.

By late Christmas Eve on certain occasions, the Times added, “the charge room at Kevin Street Barracks revealed a stock of turkeys and geese almost as formidable as that seen on sale at Thomas Street a few hours earlier. These were of course the snatched fowl taken by police from the arrested hooligans. Next morning the victims of the snatches attended at the barracks in an effort to identify and reclaim their birds, thus to retrieve their Christmas dinner, even at the eleventh hour.” But St Catherine’s has witnessed worse things than that, especially in 1803. It was also on Thomas Street, in July of that year, that Robert Emmet launched his doomed rebellion. And it was directly in front of the church that, two months later, he was hanged and then beheaded.

Historian RR Madden described the immediate aftermath of the execution: “Near the scaffold, where the blood had fallen on the pavement from between the planks of the platform, some dogs collected, lapping [it up]; more than one spectator loitered about, and, when the soldiers drove the dogs away, dipped their hankerchiefs in the blood.”

Today, a plaque recalls the grim event, which was commemorated inside and outside St Catherine’s during the 2003 bicentenary. But the wheel turns, and the again-restored church has meanwhile entered yet another phase of its existence, updating to suit the times. Among its outreach activities now, according to the website, is an event held on the premises once a month and centring on a popular game of chance, involving numbers. No, not roulette – although that might have a certain aptness.

Only bingo.