This history of music at Christ Church cathedral, Dublin, has evolved out of the chapters which I was invited to contribute to a history of the cathedral published in 2000. As I began to research the cathedral’s music history it soon became evident not only how extensive the documentary and musical sources were, but also how significant they were both for the history of music and society in Ireland, and also within the wider context of Anglican cathedral music. An edition of documents related to music and of selected anthems was published in 1999 as an ancillary volume to the Christ Church history project, and a CD recording of anthems was issued in the same year. But a single-volume history with eight contributors also covering the history, liturgy, architecture, and archives meant that the space that could be devoted to the cathedral’s musical history was necessarily limited. The subject demanded more extensive treatment. The present book answers this need, being very significantly expanded from what has appeared in the cathedral history and developing a number of aspects, some of which I have already explored in individual published papers. This book not only does fuller justice to the musical history of an institution that has been in existence for nearly one thousand years, but it also acknowledges the unique role played by Christ Church cathedral within the religious, social and political history of Ireland and within the wider context of Anglican cathedrals. The greater emphasis accorded here to the period from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century reflects on the one hand the more extensive survival of records following the beginning of this period, and on the other hand that this is the period during which Christ Church cathedral was at the height of its status and influence. The institutional, administrative and architectural histories of the cathedral have been extensively covered in the recent cathedral history and associated volumes to which the interested reader is referred. These aspects are only dealt with here inasmuch as is considered necessary to explain or provide an immediate context for the musical developments.

Since the pioneering works on English cathedral music by John Bumpus at the beginning of the twentieth century and later by Edmund Fellowes, more recent publications have focused on specific periods or aspects, or on individual cathedrals.