Parrot (Parrat), William

Parrot (Parrat), William (fl. 1622–42), builder of St Columb's cathedral, Londonderry, is first mentioned in September 1622 as a pikeman mustered for the defence of the town of Coleraine. In November 1627 he went to England carrying a letter from the 1st earl of Antrim (qv) to the English secretary of state, Lord Conway, requesting that he be given a pass to protect him from being press-ganged into military service. It is likely that he was visiting the Irish Society, as it was in that year that he contracted to build St Columb's cathedral in Londonderry at a cost of £3,400. The cathedral, situated on the highest ground in the town, was planned to seat a thousand people. Built in stone in the late Gothic style, it was completed in 1633. In 1638 King Charles I donated a ring of seven bells at a cost of £500. The cathedral was described in 1689 as the most uniform church in the kingdom and the only one covered with lead.

In 1638 Parrot was owed £1,800 by the 2nd earl of Antrim (qv), a debt believed to have been incurred by the earl's wife Katherine (qv), widow of the 1st duke of Buckingham, who undertook the restoration of the chapel at Dunluce Castle (1637–40). Parrot is recorded as a resident of Coleraine in 1640 and was mayor of the town in January 1642, when he was a signatory to a request to the lord justices for arms and money to resist the Irish rebels.