One of the lesser-known figures in early 18th century Irish cultural life is the Rev John Stearne, successively Dean of St Patrick’s, Dublin, then Bishop of Dromore and finally Bishop of Clogher. Born in 1660, he was the son of another John Stearne, Professor of Medicine at Trinity College Dublin and founder of what would become the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. In 1705 the younger Stearne succeeded his mother’s kinsman Jerome Ryves as Dean of St Patrick’s where he rebuilt the deanery (a house that would be destroyed by fire in 1781), the first of several such projects he undertook. The next came following his elevation in 1713 to the Bishopric of Dromore where he inherited an incomplete episcopal palace at Magheralin from his predecessor, Tobias Pullen. The latter had spent some residence which Stearne further extended and finished at a cost of more than £333: this building is also, alas, no more. Then, following his translation to Clogher, he is recorded by his near contemporary Walter Harris as having spent £3,000 ‘in building and other improvements.’  A considerable amount of the money is likely to have gone towards a new cathedral, commissioned by Stearne only a year before his death in 1744. 

A bachelor, Bishop Stearne was an ardent bibliophile, one of the keenest book collectors of his generation. In June 1713 he informed his friend William King, Archbishop of Dublin (another great book collector) that he sought a remedy for ‘that disease which inclines men to buy more books than they can have much use for.’ Even while he was Dean of St Patrick’s, his fondness for acquiring volumes had been noted in verses by William Percival, Dean of Emly, who wrote:
‘Near St Sepulchre’s stands a building
Which, as report goes, ne’er had child in;
The house is large, and to adorn her,
From garret down to chimney corner,
The upper chambers were well lined
With antique books, and books new coined;
Which plainly shewed its founder’s head
With learning of all sorts supplied…’*
His collection would become a useful resource for many scholars, not least the aforementioned Walter Harris who, in the preface to his updating of Sir James Ware’s writings, gratefully noted that the bishop ‘gave me free leave to make Extracts out of his valuable Collections relating to Ireland.’ In June 1738, John Copping, newly appointed Dean of Clogher told Sir Hans Sloane that Stearne, then aged 78, ‘carries in him a magazine of knowledge, unimpaired by his great age, with a constitution of body which I dare not match. An easy temper, with an engaging affability makes his house the constant resort of all the learned and polite world, and as he is a bachelor, you will not wonder that his hospitable doors are open to the ladies.’ Copping added that the bishop was as communicative as he was knowing. ‘His study is large, containing I believe 6 or 7000 volumes, among which are some curious pieces, and I believe there is nothing in his collection with which he is not intimately acquainted.’ Five years earlier, Stearne had donated £1,000 to his alma mater Trinity College Dublin for the construction of a printing house (designed by Richard Castle) and two years later gave a further £200 for the purchase of block types used in printing. It might have been expected therefore that following his death he would leave his library, which he had long regarded as ‘a resource for others’, to the college where he had long served as vice-chancellor. Instead, he opted to divide the collection between different institutions, TCD having already received in 1741 the collection of depositions relating to the 1641 rebellion, which Stearne had bought from the widow of Dr John Madden. Over 2,000 works from his collection to the library established more than forty years earlier by Narcissus Marsh, declaring in his will that this was but ‘a small token of the great regard I have for the bountiful erector and endower of this Library.’ By the terms of his will, he endowed a number of charities, including Dr Stevens’ Hospital and St Patrick’s Hospital (established by his old friend, Jonathan Swift), as well as leaving funds for the completion of the cathedral which was then under construction at Clogher. 

Located on a rise above the village, the cathedral at Clogher has always sat within the walls of what was once a Celtic hill-fort. As a religious settlement, the building is said to owe its origins to St Macartan, a companion of St Patrick, who c.493 founded a monastery here. In 1111, at the reforming Synod of Ráth Breasail, Clogher was established as a diocese, its boundaries roughly conforming to those of the medieval Kingdom of Airgíalla, although for a period during the 12th century its centre was moved to Louth. Nothing survives of the original cathedral. Dedicated to St Macartan, it was rebuilt c.1183 and then again in c.1295, before the entire site was severely damaged in two fires in the years 1395 and 1396. Further damage was inflicted on several occasions during the upheavals of the 16th century, so that by the time James Spottiswood was appointed bishop in 1621, he found the cathedral church ‘altogether ruynous. The walls of an Abbey church standeth by, which will beare no roofe.’ Although he undertook extensive restoration works, these suffered again over the course of the Confederate Wars and their aftermath, and it was only in the early 18th century that this part of the country experienced sufficient peace for John Stearne to undertake the construction of a new cathedral, although in doing so, almost all evidence of earlier buildings here were cleared. Stearne’s architect is believed to have been the builder/architect James Martin, about whom little is known except that he died almost the same time as did the bishop. Although quite clearly a classical structure, the building was described at the time as being ‘in the ancient style of English architecture.’ As explained by Peter Galloway in The Cathedrals of Ireland (1992) this clearly does not suggest the latest iteration of St Macartan’s was an early example of the Gothic revival, but rather that it had a cruciform plan ‘which was a notable move away from the hall-and-tower type of church in standard design in the late 17th century.’ In 1816-18, alterations ‘in the Grecian style’ were made to the cathedral by the then-dean, Richard Bagwell, the most obvious instance of which was the addition of an open stonework balustrade with obelisk finials around the top of the tower at the west end. Internally, further changes took place in 1865 when the galleries along the south and north sides were removed, so that only that on the west side, accommodating the organ, can be found today. The interior of the building is relatively plain, relieved by a variety of memorials between round-headed windows, most of which have been filled with stained glass: the Venetian east window has Ionic columns and pilasters and commemorates Lord John George Beresford, Bishop of Clogher 1819-20. Still well-maintained by the local community, St Macartan’s is perhaps not the most engaging cathedral in Ireland: one wonders what might have been its final appearance had both John Stearne and James Martin lived to see the work completed. 

*Patrick Delany, Dean of Down, also wrote a verse, Written on a Window, at the Deanery House, St Patrick’s, in which he mentioned the genial hospitality provided there by both Stearne and his successor Jonathan Swift.
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