Ryan Wisniewski
St. Patrick Catholic Church
St. Patrick Catholic Church
404 E. Main St.
St. Patrick's parish formed in the 1880s as an outgrowth of St. Raphael's Cathedral. (St. Raphael, 222 W. Main St., completed in 1862, was Madison's oldest Catholic church when it was destroyed by arson in 2005.) St. Patrick's was dedicated on St. Patrick's Day on 1889, and it has been strongly identified with Madison's Irish ever since.
It was designed by John Nader, a Madison architect and engineer who planned a number of historic Madison buildings, and even the city's 1885 sewer system. The church features two striking domed towers of unequal height, white brick and stone cuttings. St. Patrick's was widened in 1903, but its street face looks much the same as when it was dedicated.
