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Old St. Patrick's Church

Style
Romanesque Revival
City
Chicago, IL
Old St. Patrick's Church
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Founded on Easter Sunday, April 12, 1846, Old St. Patrick's Church has been called the cornerstone of Irish culture in Chicago. The present building, raised in the 1850s from yellow Cream City brick shipped in from Milwaukee, is one of the few structures in the city to predate the 1871 Great Chicago Fire and is Chicago's oldest standing church building.

the building

Twin spires. Two octagonal spires were added in 1885, said to represent the Eastern and Western branches of the Christian Church.

Celtic Revival interior. Between 1912 and 1922, Thomas A. O'Shaughnessy and others redecorated the interior in the Celtic Revival style, modeling ornamentation on the illuminations of the Book of Kells, reflecting the largely Irish-American congregation the parish had grown into by the 1880s.

the style

The exterior is Romanesque Revival, built of yellow brick brought from Milwaukee; the Celtic Revival interior added decades later is a separate, later layer of decoration inspired by the Book of Kells.

More on Romanesque Revival

significance

Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977; it remains the oldest standing church building in Chicago.

nearby

All 382 buildings in Chicago