In 1859 there were at least a score of Presbyterians living in the Rathmines Rathgar area and in September of that year, six men petitioned the Presbytery of Dublin to establish a regular Sunday evening service in the old school house in Rathmines. Early in November of the same year, permission was granted and the congregation was born. At the first meeting of the Church committee £725 was pledged by 20 members and the decision was taken to seek out a suitable site for a Presbyterian Church to be built. By December, steps were being taken to acquire the present site. A call was issued to the Rev. William Fleming Stevenson and in January 1860, he began his ministry in Rathmines. An invitation was issued to architects to compete for designs to build a church to seat 400 people at a cost of £2,000. The foundation stone was laid on 19th July 1860. On the 2nd of February 1862, the Church was completed, consecrated and opened. By 1899, the church was too small to hold the congregation and plans to enlarge the church were put in place. In 1900, both transepts were lengthened and the chancel was added, altogether providing an extra 160 seats. The pipe organ was also installed. By 1908, there were 525 names on the Communion Roll and further extension work was being considered.
On a more contemporary and multidenominational note, the Church has fine meeting rooms that have been refurbished and are available for rental for once off, or regular events. In addition regular Car Boot Sales are hosted in the Church grounds on Saturdays and worth visiting by bargain hunting Geocachers. Might even find some interesting cache containers there!
There is limited on street parking on Highfield Road. Any of the number 15 buses serve Rathgar.
Church Micros
"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 ~3500 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."