The 50 Francis Street Photographer
pin holy medals or a cross on the pram to protect the baby.
Baptisms usually took place within a week or two of birth,
though many new mothers could not take their child to be
baptised because they, themselves, needed to attend the church
for a ceremony called Churching, which ‘cleansed’ them after
childbirth. They had to perform this ritual before they were
allowed to attend a religious ceremony. Very often, it was a
nurse from the maternity hospital or the child’s grandmother
who took the baby to be baptised – and if your granny didn’t
like the name that had been chosen for you, she could easily
change it during the christening to one she did like.
Holy days and feast days were revered.
Ash Wednesday, Holy Thursday and Good
Friday were all days when people did their
duty and obeyed the customs the Church
had laid down. I remember my granddad
telling me about having his throat blessed
on St Blaize’s feast day.
The focus of religious life of many in the
Liberties was the Church of St Nicholas of
Myra (Without) on Francis Street. In penal
times, it had been the city’s Roman Catholic
Pro-Cathedral – and a five-minute walk in
either direction brings you to the Protestant
cathedrals of St Patrick’s and Christ Church.
The building commenced in 1829 and the
church opened in 1834, with its dedication
to St Nicholas following a year later. The
‘without’ refers to the parish outside the
old city walls – there is also a parish named
St Nicholas (Within). St Nicholas was
The church of St Nicholas of Myra