PAUL ARNOLD ARCHITECTS

St. Mary’s is a fine Gothic Revival church designed by one of Ireland’s greatest architects in this idiom, James Joseph McCarthy, the ‘Irish Pugin’. Built to serve a new parish of Sandymount formed out of Donnybrook and Rongsend, the foundation stone was laid in 1851. Building work was not completed until 1858, being disrupted by serious storm damage in 1853 when one of the east gables was blown down. St. Mary’s is one of McCarthy’s earlier churches but bears many of the hallmarks of his later work. The great stained glass windows in reticulated frames are a particular feature of the church. St. Mary’s is receives a brief mention in James Joyce’s Ulysees.