The Parish of the Church of the Ascension of The Lord, Balally, was constituted in 1977 from Sandyford Parish. It takes its name from the townland of the same name situated in the ancient deanery of Taney. The old Gaelic form is Baile Amhlaoibh – meaning the “town of Olave” indicating Norse ownership before the Anglo-Norman invasion. Balally Parish stretches from the Slang river at Ardglas to the M50 motorway at Sandyford. It comprises Sandyford Road, the housing estates on both sides of it as well as the Sandyford/Stillorgan Industrial Estates. It also takes in the Gort Muire Conference Centre and the estates of College Park, Delbrook Manor and Delbrook Park on the Ballinteer Road.
For the first few years, of the parishes’ existence St. Olaf’s National School hall was used as a Mass Centre.
The Church of the Ascension of the Lord was opened in October 1982 by
Archbishop Dermot Ryan. The architect was Liam McCormack. It has a distinctive cylindrical shape.
The cache is a small magnetic tube. Parking is available in the nearby supermarket car park.
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 throughGeocaching.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 thousands 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.