St Michan''s Church
Though it doesn't look much now - only the tower and a few other fragments are original - St Michan's Church (Mon-Fri 10am-12.45pm & 2-4.45pm, Sat 10am-12.45pm; GBP1.50/?1.90), founded in 1095, is the oldest building on the northside. The reason it's on the tourist trail is that the crypt's combination of dry air and constant temperature, together with methane gas secreted by rotting vegetation beneath the church, keeps corpses in a state of unnatural, mummified preservation: some of the "best" are on display, with skin, fingernails and hair all clearly identifiable, sometimes after three hundred years. Depending on the mood of the guide, different crypts are opened, and among the dead are a nun, a crusader and a thief - this last identified as such because of a missing hand, amputated as penance for an earlier offence. One of the crypts contains the death mask of United Irish leader, Wolfe Tone, and the bodies of two of his compatriots, the Sheare brothers. None of the bodies was originally stored in the church, and how this odd collection of corpses got here is still a mystery. St Michan's also boasts an early eighteenth-century organ, still with its original gilding on the case, which Handel played and admired during a visit to Dublin.
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