St. Teresa’s Church, Donore Avenue is situated in the Liberties area of South West Inner City Dublin.
Geographically the parish is made up of several clearly distinct districts: The Tenters, Cork St. & Marylands, South Circular Road from the Mosque to Player Wills Factory and St. Teresa’s Gardens, Chamber Court and Weaver Court. Each of these districts has distinctive characteristics, having developed at different times resulting in diverse and interesting histories.
[further information available at http://www.maristfathers.org/parishstteresas.html]
Initially the area around Donore Avenue (originally named Love Lane) was part of the Parish of St. Catherine’s, Meath Street. The granite-faced church was built in 1924 and was later extended to cater for the growing population in the area. In January 1946 it was constituted as a parish in its own right, and dedicated to Saint Thérèse of Lisieux who had been canonised in 1925.
There is a family of foxes living on the grounds of the church which some locals say have been there since before the church was built. They have, of course, adapted to their surroundings and roam the surrounding streets at night. If you are planning to come here at night, there is a good chance you will see one crossing the road in front of you.
You will notice the wonderful and well -tended rose garden which faces the road in front of the presbytery. There is a sculpture here entitled “Hand of Hope” by Leonardo Benasalvas, in memory of all who passed away through addiction; St. Theresa’s Church is a focal point in a community decimated by drugs since the 1980’s.
Adjacent to the garden is the Donore Youth and Community Centre, winner of the Architectural Association of Ireland Award 2004 and the PlanOpus Construction Award 2004.
Many of the streets around this church have literary associations: Oscar (Wilde) Square, (Eugene) O’Curry Road, (John Kells) Ingram Road, (George) Petrie Road, (John) O’Donovan Road and (James) Clarence Mangan Road.
The back of the old Player Wills Factory can also be seen from here. This site is frequently used as a crew base and set by filmmakers.
I want to place a Church Micro cache too:
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.