St. Luke's Church is a former

Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland (, ; , ) is a Christian church in Ireland, and an autonomy, autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the Christianity in Ireland, second-largest Christian church on the ...

parish church in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

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. It is located on

The Coombe The Coombe (; ) is a historic street in the south inner city of Dublin, Ireland. It was originally a hollow or valley where a tributary of the River Poddle, the Coombe Stream or Commons Water, ran. The name is sometimes used for the broader area ...

, not far from St. Patrick's Cathedral.

The building

History as a church

1708 In the Swedish calendar it was a leap year starting on Wednesday, one day ahead of the Julian and ten days behind the Gregorian calendar. Events January–June * January 1 – Charles XII of Sweden invades Russia, by crossing the ...

, an act of parliament was passed, dividing the parish of St. Nicholas Without and giving part of it the denomination of St. Luke's. A

glebe A glebe (, also known as church furlong, rectory manor or parson's close(s)) is an area of land within an ecclesiastical parish used to support a parish priest. The land may be owned by the church, or its profits may be reserved to the church. ...

house was erected on

for the vicar, who was nominated by the Chapter of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the church of St. Luke erected not far from the Glebe,Wright probably by Thomas Burgh, Surveyor General. It has been said that the church was built mainly for the benefit of the conformist French Huguenot weavers who lived in the neighbourhood. However, very few, if any, French names appeared in the parish registers from this time - the Huguenots had their own place of worship in a chapel in nearby St. Patrick's Cathedral. However, there was a huge influx of weavers and others associated with the silk and poplin industries and cotton and wool manufacture.

Later history

The church was closed in 1975. It was burned by an arsonist in 1986. It is in the ownership of Dublin City Council and is listed for conservation by the Council. The church was reopened in 2017 after a complete restoration, in which a new two floor office facility was installed within the church walls. The grounds were converted into public space, and the graves were moved by Dublin City Council.

The cemetery

Behind the church was a small cemetery. Among those interred there was Mr. Justice Hellen, second Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Ireland, who died in 1793. Also buried here were the family of famous publisher Alexander Thom. The relief road leading to Cork St., built 1980-2000, cut through the old cemetery.St. Luke's Conservation Plan, Dublin City Council, at www.dublincity.ie

The parish

The parish lay at the southern end of the Liberty of Thomas Court and Donore, which in turn was located to the west of the medieval city of Dublin. The northern boundary was the Coombe. Most of the parish population in the late 17th and 18th centuries were weavers in the Dublin Liberties. Wool manufacturing more or less died out after the

Wool Act 1699 The Wool Act 1698 (or the Woolens Act) was an act of the Parliament of England ( 10 Will. 3. c. 16), long titled ''An Act to prevent the Exportation of Wool out of the Kingdoms of Ireland and England into Forreigne parts and for the Incourag ...

, which prevented the export of Irish wool, but silk, cotton and poplin industries continued to employ large numbers and generate wealth until the end of the 18th century. In 1766, in order to check the growth of Catholics, the British government ordered a religious census to be carried out by the Protestant clergy, which showed the parish had 4,953 Catholics and 2,908 Protestants. The Catholics did not have a parish church of their own in this parish, but belonged to the Catholic St. Nicholas parish, but they did, from 1729, have six schools here, all run by women.N. Donnelly: A Short History of Dublin Parishes. Dublin, 1916. Part VI, pp. 52-55 After the collapse of the weaving trade and the economic slump after the Act of Union, most of the parishioners were left destitute. So proverbial was this parish for its poverty, that in the 19th century the advertisement of the annual charity sermon for St. Luke's was headed by the words, "The Poorest Parish in Dublin." A school was established for poor boys of the parish in 1810. When the school was moved to New Street in 1862, the building was converted to form the Widows Alms House, which is still standing.

References and sources

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George Newenham Wright George Newenham Wright (c. 1794–1877) was an Irish writer and Anglican clergyman. He was born in Dublin; his father, John Thomas Wright was a doctor. He graduated B.A. from Trinity College Dublin in 1814 and M.A. in 1817, having been elect ...