Trevor James looks at the history of the churches in Ringsend and Irishtown through three centuries.
In
this article I want to briefly describe the history of the churches of Ringsend
and Irishtown, past and present. There
have been three main denominations with churches in the area, Roman Catholic,
Church of Ireland and Methodist. There
was also a Presbyterian church on the corner of Tritonville Road and Sandymount
Road, and I have included it although it lay just outside the Irishtown parish
boundary.
St.
Matthew’s
The
oldest church in the Ringsend/Irishtown area is St Matthew’s in Irishtown,
founded in 1704 to serve the growing population of Ringsend which was then the
principal port of Dublin. The port was
busy with sailors, fishermen and customs officials, many of them Protestant, but
the nearest church was in Donnybrook and the route to Donnybrook was regularly
cut off by marshy ground, high tides and highwaymen. The Church of Ireland archbishop of Dublin,
Dr William King, petitioned the Government to pay for a church in the area and
this was agreed. Because of parliament’s
involvement, the church was called the Royal chapel of St Matthew. Although the church was within the parish of
St Mary, Donnybrook, as a Royal Chapel it was the responsibility of the monarch
to appoint the chaplains.
When
the church was built it was virtually on the coastline, but land reclamation
over the last 300 years has moved it further inland. The original church was built to a design by
Sir Christopher Wren which was used for several other churches of the
period. It was smaller than it is now,
basically a rectangle with no transepts on the back wall is just beyond
where the transepts now start. It had a gallery all around, with an organ and
choir in the balcony above the entrance porch facing the altar. The tower,
which has the bell, was also lower than it is now but in 1713, at the request
of Dublin corporation, the tower was raised to its present height and a small
pyramidal steeple and weather vane was added, to act as a navigation aid for
ships coming along this dangerous coastline. The steeple was removed after it
was damaged in a storm in 1839.
For the first 15 years the church
was serviced by ministers from Donnybrook church but in 1723, Reverend John
Bohereau (or Borough) was appointed as the first minister. He died three years
later and is buried in the churchyard. In 1832, a building was erected beside
the church, on church road which housed a day school, a Sunday school, and
infant school, a dispensary with a physician and a shop for supplying the poor
with necessities at reduced prices. It was demolished in the 1960s.
In 1871, the Church of Ireland was
disestablished, that is, it ceased to be the official state church and became
independent of the government. St Matthews thus lost its Royal Chapel status
and became a normal parish church with its own vestry or self-governing body of
laypeople. Reverend Stoney, a curate from Donnybrook was appointed as the first
rector of the new parish and he quickly set about making changes. He removed
the high walls which had surrounded the church and he closed the graveyard
which was already full. In 1878 he began
a building programme which created the church as it is today. The main body of
the church was nearly doubled in length and new transepts were added. The galleries
were taken down and the organ moved. The changes increased the capacity of the
church from about 350 to over 600. He also ended the practice of families being
allowed to buy pews.
Inside the church, the mosaic tiling
on the floor was completed in 1891 and the stained-glass windows were installed
between 1890 and 1899. Two of them were donated by the Reverend Stoney’s family
and one, depicting Christ stilling the waves, was donated by the church warden,
Sir Robert Jackson, in memory of his son, a ship’s surgeon, who was washed
overboard in a gale off the Canary Islands.
In the tower, there was originally a
single bell but in 1888 a set of eight tubular bells was installed, the first
tubular bells in any church in Ireland.
These could be played by a single person and their sound was a feature
of Irishtown until the 1970s. They are still in the tower but some part have
been corroded and the bell is now a recording.
In the 1970s, as attendances
dwindled, a new parish hall was created within the church by partitioning off
part of the nave under the old gallery.
The front doors were closed, and an entrance the side was used, but in
2018 the porch was reinstated and the front doors opened once again making the
church as it is today.
CATHOLIC CHURCHES
There has been a Roman Catholic
chapel in Irishtown for centuries. It
was in Chapel Avenue and according to tradition it dated back to the 16th
century.
In
1786 a new parish of St Mary’s was created and a young newly ordained priest, Father
Peter Clinch, was appointed as the first parish priest. The parish consisted of Irishtown, Ringsend,
and Donnybrook and much of Sandymount.
The
parish had two chapels, one in Donnybrook, where the Garda station is today,
and the other in Chapel Avenue, Irishtown. Father Clinch was apparently a very
popular figure among Catholics and Protestants alike but, after only five years
in charge of the parish, he was crossing the Liffey in a boat when he got an
accidental blow of an oar which broke his jaw. Complications set in and
tragically he died soon afterwards. He is buried in the graveyard of St
Matthew’s where his gravestone still stands.
The
Catholic population of the area steadily increased and by the mid-1800s the old
chapel was no longer fit for purpose. As
the Freeman’s Journal put it : “The present venerable but very small and
inconvenient chapel, humble in structure, possessing no architectural
pretensions and hidden amongst a crowd of half ruinous dwellings, - endeared
though it may be to the memories of those who held fast to the faith in the
church in days of bitter persecution – must be considered to have served its
purpose and a larger and nobler structure must now be upraised in Irishtown
equal to the spiritual requirements of the Catholic inhabitants”.
So,
in 1850, plans were drawn up for the erection of a new church on land that had
been given by the landlord, Hon Sidney Herbert, and fundraising began in
earnest. This was a poor parish but
every week the names of those who had donated (and the amount) were published
in the Freeman’s Journal.
The choice of site was not to the liking of many
Ringsenders who complained that it was too far away and that the four thousand Catholics
in Ringsend / Irishtown had a better claim to it. Although it was technically within the parish
of Irishtown (albeit on the border) they felt it was too close to
Sandymount. They petitioned Herbert not
to allow the building, but their protests were in vain for on 7th
May 1851 the first stone of the “Star of the Sea” Church was laid. The design for the church was to be ‘a
Gothic temple’ which ‘for beauty of architecture and interior
arrangement (would) vie with any suburban church in the country’. At that
time there was no building between the church and the sea, and it would have
been one of the first buildings that ships coming into the bay would see.
Freeman's
Journal 17 April 1851
The
work progressed rapidly, mainly using local labour, and by the end of 1852, the
walls were all completed, and it was ready for roofing. Disastrously, on St
Stephen’s night 1852, a terrific storm blew throughout Dublin and the front and
rear gables, with their elaborate Gothic windows, were blown down and
fundraising had to start again. Money
was borrowed and the work began again.
Soon the walls were rebuilt and the church was roofed. This was the time
of the Great Dublin exhibition, a spectacular trade, arts and industry fair in
the grounds of Leinster House and many visitors to the exhibition made the trip
to Irishtown to view the beautiful new church.
The
church cost about £6000 to build and for some time after the parish was in debt
to the tune of £2000. However, on the
Feast of the Assumption, 1853, Star of the Sea was solemnly dedicated by His
Grace, Archbishop Cullen and the chapel in Irishtown was closed.
Ringsenders
were still unhappy about the site of the new church. Although it was called
Star of the Sea, Irishtown, they thought it was too far away. In any case the population of the area was
increasing rapidly and by 1857 it was already beginning to prove insufficient
for the number attending mass.
In
these circumstances Fr O’Connell began planning for a new chapel at Ringsend. The site of the church was the plot of ground
where St Patrick’s now stands. This was the site of the church presbytery, which
also served as a Sunday school for girls run by the Sisters of Charity, and
another building which housed an evening school, which provided an education
for eighty young men and boys.
On
April 13th, 1858, Fr. O’Connell laid the first stone. Three weeks later, he
held a public meeting in the school room, Ringsend, attended by many of the
influential and wealthy parishioners from the area (including St Mary’s,
Haddington Road and Star of the Sea) to
organise the fund-raising for the new church.
It was to be ‘a very unpretending , humble, but at the same time
appropriate edifice, and one such as is wanted in this village’.
The
building, designed by J E Fuller, was a simple rectangle, capable of holding
300 people and cost only £800 compared to the several thousand that Star of the
Sea had cost. A subscription list was opened, and help was sought from all
quarters since it was clear that the vast majority of the local parishioners
would not be able to contribute. The
Freemans Journal carried an article seeking funds for the church in Ringsend, “a centre in which is collected a vast amount of abject
poverty and wretchedness, unfortunately of magnitude too great to be
efficiently relieved by public bounty, however munificent” and hoping that
“the benevolent public will do, as they always do, their duty to the poor”.
St
Patrick's Church
Evening News 13 July 1859
Soon
after its opening, St Patrick’s became the designated church for Catholic
soldiers stationed at Beggars Bush barracks and Pigeon House Fort. A special service was held for them every
Sunday and the troops would march to church from their barracks under their
senior officer.
As
the twentieth century advanced the church became totally inadequate to meet the
needs of the parish and the new parish priest, Canon Mooney, was determined to
build a new church. While the old church could only hold 300 people, according
to Canon Mooney there were 5000 parishioners.
However, the parishioners were for the most part from the “moneyless,
working classes”
A
meeting was held in 1907 to discuss the possibility of raising enough money to
build a new church, for Archbishop Walsh had instructed the parish that they
were not to get into debt in building the church.
The
archbishop was aware of the situation in Ringsend and wrote to Canon Mooney saying:
“I have had a very considerable experience in the matter of Church building
in and around the city, and throughout all parts of the Diocese. It is not my
practice to approve, of works of the kind being undertaken when they are not
really necessary. But in all my experience, extensive as it has been, I have
met with no case in which the need for the building of a church was more
painfully obvious than it is in Ringsend. Nor have I met with any case in which
the local resources fell more painfully short of what is needed for the
building of a Church even, of the simplest and most unpretending character.
You
need all the help that can come to you from your friends outside the Parish as
well as from your own good people. The £1,000 which I promised to the people of
Ringsend as my contribution towards the building of their church will be
forthcoming whenever you are in a position to inform me that you have a
sufficient sum in hand to justify us in starting the work of building. The
sooner you are able to give me the good news the better I shall be pleased”.
The
foundation stone was laid by the Archbishop of Dublin on 29 October 1911. The church was designed by W.H. Byrne and Son
in a Gothic revival style which was common for Roman Catholic
churches of the period in Ireland. The plan was to build the church in sections
so that the original church could be used until it was replaced. A fundraising notice in the Dublin Leader in
November 1912 claimed that the first half would be completed in a few weeks but
that the second half would not be commenced unless the full sum necessary to
build it was raised. This was a
condition that the Archbishop had set.
The
first half, which was the sanctuary, was completed and blessed by the
archbishop on 29 July 1913 but it seems the full sum was not raised immediately
because in 1915 the church was still “rising rapidly to completion.”
The
belfry and clock tower must have been completed by 1916 because June that year a
new set of bells was installed and blessed.
But clearly more was needed, and
Canon Mooney continued to advertise regularly in all the newspapers and in 1917
he was still advertising in Ulster newspapers for funds to complete the church.
He
was a tireless worker but the strain of it may have been too much because he
died in August 1917 only months after celebrating fifty years as a priest. The church was by then complete although
Canon Mooney continued to advertise for funding, presumably to furnish and
adorn it, until his death.
There
are some beautiful stained-glass windows in the church. One, depicting Saint Patrick at Tara, was
designed by Harry Clarke and installed in 1923.
The window behind the altar was by Earley and Sons and was installed in
1929.
One of the features of the church is the four faced clock which was installed in 1916 and funded by the workers of the Glass Bottle Company. The clock used to be wound by hand and was nicknamed ‘the four faced liar’ as the four faces often showed different times. The bells are also a feature of Ringsend and chime every quarter hour.
METHODIST CHURCHES
When
the Brixham fishermen came in the 1820s many of them were Methodists and it is
likely they formed a small Methodist community here. At first, they would meet
in a house on Thorncastle Street, opposite the site of St Patrick’s church. The main Methodist chapel at that time was in
Whitefriar Street but, as more Brixham families arrived, it was decided to
build a small chapel in Ringsend. The
Bartlett and Blackmore families were very involved and were leaders in the
community.
In
1830 construction began on a Chapel at Ringsend in Thomas Street. It was a plain gable ended building with a
front porch and it served the community there for over seventy years. In 1901 there was some damage to the roof from
a storm and consideration was given to acquiring a new church.
The
Pembroke Estate was approached to lease a site on Irishtown Road and a new
church was built there in 1904. It was
designed by George Beckett and the building contractor was his brother James
Beckett. The new church opened in June
1904.
The
old church was offered for sale and at one stage there were plans for it to be
converted into a cinema. It was finally
sold in 1914 and in 1936 the building was acquired by the Catholic Young Men's
Society.
A new hall was added to the church in 1932 and was used for Sunday School and Boys’ Brigade and Girls’ Brigade meetings.
Ringsend Methodist churchHowever,
attendances at the church began to fall and there was a larger Methodist church
in Sandymount, so in June 1961 the church was closed and the congregation
merged with Sandymount.
The
site was sold and the building was demolished to make way for new apartments,
built a few years later. Apparently when
the builders were working on the site, they came across four large stones
engraved with names. Thinking they were
gravestones they stopped work on the site, not wishing to disturb the
dead. It turned out they were the
foundation stones, each engraved with a patron’s name.
THE FLOATING CHAPEL
Around
the end of the 18th century there was a floating chapel in Ringsend
docks.
Around 1798, the Port of Dublin Society for the Religious Instruction of Seamen bought the hull of an old Danish vessel and used it as a floating chapel. It may have had two different mooring spots – on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay and in the Grand Canal Dock at the corner of Hanover Quay and Grand Canal Quay. However, it began to deteriorate and needed repair so frequently that it was decided to build a church on shore. The first stone of the Mariner’s Church was laid by Vice-Admiral Oliver on July 18, 1832, in Forbes Street and the chapel opened in September 1833. It was still there in 1881 when an appeal was made for donations, but it closed soon after.
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Although
not in Irishtown, I have included the Presbyterian church since it stood on the
boundary and was opposite Star of the Sea.
The church opened on 23 May 1858, only a few years after Star of the Sea
was completed. Like many of the churches
of the period, it was in the Gothic style. A newspaper article extolled the
virtues of the location – Great judgement was shown in the selection of the
locality, which is a very pleasant one and at a convenient distance from town,
whilst it is not unlikely that the attraction of a healthy walk, before or
after service, on the white level strand of Sandymount, inhaling the fresh
sea-breeze and enjoying the splendid views of the wooded shores of Clontarf,
with the white terraces peeping out from among the dark green of the trees,
Lambay Isle, the Hill of Howth, Killiney crowned with its obelisk, the lofty
Sugar-loaf, and the Dublin mountains, a fitting background to the magnificent
scenery may be the means of drawing out from the city many people who,
otherwise would have spent the sabbath day less profitably.
The church was the founding place of the Girl’s Brigade which began in 1893 when Sunday school teacher, Miss Margaret Lyttle, who was running a girls’ choir, suggested that the girls do some physical exercises to warm up. The girls enjoyed doing the exercises, so they were included every week. One of the girls had a brother in The Boys’ Brigade which also performed similar physical exercises suggested that their group could be called The Girls’ Brigade. Soon, the idea was copied and became a formally recognised group with a constitution and uniform and eventually became a worldwide organisation. Attendances in the church diminished over the years and in 1975 the congregation agreed to share the church on Sandymount Green with the Methodists. For the following twenty years, the church was used as a parish hall . In 1987, the spire had to be taken down as dry rot was found in the base. In 1999, despite strong local protests, the building was demolished to make way for sheltered housing for the elderly. As a Sunday Tribune columnist remarked “The crime was to choose old people over old bricks”.
ABUNDANT GRACE
Perhaps
the most recent ‘church’ in the area is the premises of the Abundant Grace Christian
Assembly located in the old Regal cinema in Fitzwilliam Street. They have been
present in the area since 2007 and were previously located in the old Irishtown
Girls School, beside the Garda station.
RINGSEND MISSION HALL
Finally,
a building that wasn’t really a church but was sometimes regarded as one – The
Mission Hall in York Street. The hall
was built in 1896 as a Mission Hall for the Young Men’s Christian Association
(YMCA) and was funded largely by Sarah Elizabeth Bewley. It was intended to be used both as a YMCA
centre and an inter-denominational
Mission Hall. As well as hosting prayer
meetings there were many recreational activities. The hall fell into disuse and there were
plans to sell the land but the terms of the according to terms of the lease, it
had to be kept in perpetuity as a resource for the people of Ringsend and each
generation had to name trustees.
Today it is a café and training centre for young people.
