North Cathedral - The Pro-cathedral of St Mary and St Anne’s, commonly called the North Cathedral, is the fourth church built in the parish of St Anne's since the Reformation. The first is known to have existed in 1635 as has been described as a baptismal church. Its exact site is unknown but was possibly in Coppinger's Lane. The second church was built about 1700 near what is now known as Old Chapel Lane. The third church was built in 1730 by Bishop Donogh MacCarthy Rabagh on the present site of St Mary's. Building on the present church commenced in the 1790's but it was not officially opened until 1808. The Cathedral built here was the vision of Bishop Francis Moylan who was Bishop of Cork from 1787-1815.Like many of his predecessors, Bishop Moylan spent time on the continent as a priest during the Penal Laws. When he took up his office as Bishop of Cork there was no Cathedral, no seminary and no catholic educational establishment of note. The people who lived on the northern edges of the city attended Mass in local Mass houses and later in a chapel near the North Presentation Convent. When the Cathedral was opened in 1808, Nano Nagle was then teaching and feeding the poor in the streets of Cork; the French invasions in support of the United Irishmen were talked about -and opposed by Bishop Moylan; the Christian Brothers were opening their first schools in Cork, and Daniel O'Connell was arguing the case for Catholic Emanicipation in the British Parliament. The Penal Laws were fading fast and Catholic Cork was confident and strident in religious matters as well as other spheres of life.The Cathedral was opened in 1808 as the parish church of the single parish then on the northside of the city -hence its local name: the North Chapel. The first priest to be ordained in the Cathedral was John Englandon the 10 th October 1808. He later emigrated to the United States where he became a Bishop in South Carolina. In June 1820, the North Chapel when it was maliciously burned during the night. Bishop John Murphy, a member of the famous brewing family, organised the reconstruction of the church. The architect George R Pain was selected by the Bishop to carry out the work. Pain remodeled the interior in a fine Gothic style and extended the cathedral incorporating a new enlarged sanctuary. Bishop Murphy also commissioned the famous Cork Sculptor John Horgan to design the main altar. Horgan’s work included the placing of 27 statutes in niches around the altar and the relief-carving in wood of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper as the frontpiece to the altar. The next additions were carried out by Canon Daniel Foley which included the mortuary and baptistery for the Cathedral. It was not, however, until in 1860 that a major reconstruction was carried out to the Cathedral. The work was entrusted to the architect Sir John Benson. He nearly doubled the size of the church, extended the existing tower and added the Great Western Door which is now the main entrance to the church.