Religious Buildings

Dublin is a city of churches, chapels, and meeting houses. This image gallery depicts some of them. Some remain, some have changed use, and some have vanished but all live on in our collective memory. It is sometimes said that Dublin is more a patchwork of parishes than a homogenous city. The religious buildings of Dublin were more than places of worship. They were the totems of their respective communities and the stones and steeples depicted here are the vestiges of those they served.

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FURTHER RESOURCES

Dublin City Public Libraries has a wide range of sources on the religious history of Dublin, some of which are available online and some through the Dublin City Public Libraries network.

N.B. The following books proved to be particularly useful when researching this image gallery and are highly recommended:

Peter Costello, Dublin Churches (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1989)

Steven C. Smyrl, Dictionary of Dublin Dissent, Dublin's Protestant Dissenting Meeting Houses 1660-1920 (Dublin: A. & A. Farmar, 2009)

Brendan Grimes, Commodious Temples, Roman Catholic Church Building in Nineteenth-Century Dublin (Dublin: Dublin City Public Libraries, 2010)

The Reading Room, Dublin City Library and Archive, Pearse Street also holds a wealth of material on the history of Dublin, including books, pamphlets, journals, street directories, and almanacs.

The following online resources can be accessed free of charge at your local library (access links via our NetVibes portal). Ask library staff for information and assistance.

Irish Times Digital Archive: This online archive service gives access to contemporary editions of the Irish Times from the mid-nineteenth century until the present.

Irish Newspaper Archive: This online archive service gives access to contemporary editions of the Irish Independent and a range of other newspapers.

The Ireland-JSTOR Collection: This online archive of academic articles can also be accessed free of charge at your local library.

For further reading, consult the Dublin City Library Catalogue

View Religious Buildings Gallery