Sacred Heart, Donnybrook
Where the River Dodder meets the N11 in Donnybrook, a church
can be found.
A new Catholic Church was erected in 1866 on the south bank of
the River Dodder. It was dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in
order to atone for the riotous antics of the Donnybrook Fair from
the 12th to the 19th century.
The opening ceremony took place on the 26th August, 1866.
Cardinal Archbishop Paul Cullen, Ireland's first Cardinal,
dedicated it. It replaced the Church of St. Mary, which stood where
the Garda station is now located. The architects were Edward W.
Pugin and G. C. Ashlin. The builder was Michael Meade. He built
what is now St. Michael's College, as his private residence and
also many of the houses on Ailesbury Road. The church was built of
granite with Bath stone dressings at a cost of £7,000.The first
parish priest was Rt. Rev. Monsignor Andrew O'Connell. In 1909,
Canon Gossan finished the church tower at a cost of £1,200. On 19th
July 1923, His Grace Most Rev. Dr. Byrne consecrated the church now
completely clear of debt. During the widening of the main street in
1931, the granite cross from the old church was found and later
incorporated in the wall of the new extension beside Anglesea
Road.
The present parish runs from the south side of Ranelagh Road to
the R.D.S. Ballsbridge and from Belfield almost to Leeson Street
Bridge.
The Cache
This is a simple magnetic cache and dash of micro size, placed
to add another cache to the Church Micro IE series and also to
convince a certain someone to go out Geocaching more! Limited
parking is available at the cache site.
The Church Micro IE series is open to everyone; if you have a
church you would like to place a cache at then please contact
THE_Chris through Geocaching.com. This is to keep track of the
numbers of the churches and give you the general format for the
cache page. In the UK there are ~1500 caches in the series so we
have some catching up to do! Also, if you currently have a
published cache at a church that you would like to include in the
series, get in contact and we can add it.