Here are a series of photos I took earlier today, of the interior of the newly refurbished St. Catherine’s Church on Meath Street. Whilst penning previous articles about the re-opening of the local church, I found it hard to locate images of the new interior online, so I decided to take some pics that could be used elsewhere. The work done to the church has brought some attention to the area, so it’s probably important to have images available that can be published. Feel free to re-publish, under a Creative Commons license, the details of which are defined here:

St. Catherines Church Refurbishment, Meath Street, Dublin 8 by Damien Hughes/FRG.ie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

When I arrived on Meath Street, the plan was to get a quick haircut before I took some photos, and thankfully there was a hairdressers directly across the road from the Church, Angel’s Hair & Beauty. During the haircut, I started talking to the hairdresser about the church, and the fire specifically.

She told me that on the day of the fire she and her colleagues were working away as normal, but from about 30 minutes before the fire took place, the man who started the fire had been running in and out of their premises, and other businesses on Meath Street, stating that he was going to burn the church down. She said that one of the customers rang the Gardai, but it wasn’t until the fire was actually started, that there was any sign of anybody taking him seriously. He is currently in the Central Mental Hospital, after being committed to the institution in May 2013, as a direct result of the court case related to this fire.

Related Stories:
St. Catherine’s Church To Hold It’s First Service On Sunday
St. Catherine’s Church On Meath Street Re-Opening In November

The fire really took hold as a back-draft was inadvertently created when the firemen opened up the front doors of the church on arrival, and it then completely engulfed the church within 30 seconds, according to the Irish Times. Maybe there is something to learn, regarding the design/shape of churches, and how they should be approached by firecrew when a fire is underway?

After a €4.1m renovation, the church is looking absolutely amazing, and even better than it looked pre-fire in my opinion. There’s plenty of extra stonework on view, and it seems much brighter because of that. Well done to all the renovation crew who undertook a substantial job!

The New Interior Roof in St. Catherine’s Church

The Refurbished Altar in St. Catherine’s Church

Refurbished Grotto’s within St. Catherine’s Church

View from the Altar in St. Catherine’s Church

View from the Front Door in St. Catherine’s Church

The Exterior of St. Catherine’s Church

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