St Patrick's Cathedral

Ireland's largest church stands on the spot where, legend has it, Saint Patrick himself baptised converts in a well around 450 AD. Whether that's true is anyone's guess, but the well was real — it was rediscovered during excavations in 1901. The current building dates to 1220 and has been through more identity crises than any church should have to endure: Catholic cathedral, Church of Ireland cathedral, Cromwell's horse stable, and finally the meticulously restored Gothic masterpiece you see today.

Jonathan Swift — the man who wrote Gulliver's Travels — served as Dean here from 1713 until his death in 1745. He took the job reluctantly, considering it exile from London, but threw himself into championing the Irish poor with savage brilliance. His essay "A Modest Proposal," suggesting the English eat Irish babies to solve the famine problem, remains the most devastating piece of political satire in the English language. He's buried in the nave, and he wrote his own epitaph: "Where savage indignation can no longer lacerate his heart. Go, traveller, and imitate, if you can, this dedicated and earnest champion of liberty."

Swift left the bulk of his £12,000 fortune to found a hospital for the mentally ill. St. Patrick's Hospital opened in 1757 and still operates today — making it one of the oldest psychiatric hospitals in the world. Swift himself may have suffered from what we now recognize as Meniere's disease, which causes vertigo and hearing loss.

The cathedral floor is paved with hundreds of memorial tablets, and the choir stalls bear the banners of the Knights of St. Patrick, an order of chivalry created in 1783. It's a place where eight centuries of Irish history are literally carved into the stone.