{"id":324394,"date":"2026-03-02T03:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T03:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/324394\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T03:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T03:38:08","slug":"religious-order-to-end-near-800-year-association-with-cork-when-it-closes-church-in-city-centre-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/324394\/","title":{"rendered":"Religious order to end near 800-year association with Cork when it closes church in city centre \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A religious community which has been ministering to the people of Cork<\/a> for almost 800 years its to close its church in the city centre later this year.<\/p>\n

Vicar Provincial of the Augustinians in Ireland, Fr Paddy O\u2019Reilly, told the congregation attending a Vigil Mass at St Augustine\u2019s on Washington Street on Saturday that the order was closing the church in July due to falling vocations.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Reilly told Mass-goers that the decision to close St Augustine\u2019s was taken with \u201cgreat sadness\u201d. He said that since the mid-1970s, the order had experienced \u201ca slow but accelerating decline in vocations\u201d.<\/p>\n

According to the Order of St Augustine website, it has 70 priests living in 10 locations in Ireland.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Reilly told worshippers that only 10 of these priests are under the age of 70 and more than half its members are over 80.<\/p>\n

It is understood that St Augustine\u2019s, which was run with the consent of the Bishop of Cork and Ross, is now home to just three Augustinian priests following the deaths in the last year of three of its community in Cork, including their leader, Fr John Hennebry.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Reilly said one of the considerations informing the order in its decision to close the Washington Street church was the knowledge that \u201cCork city centre is well served by Franciscans, Capuchins, Dominicans, and by an abundance of diocesan churches\u201d.<\/p>\n

Among those to celebrate Mass at St Augustine\u2019s over its 84 year history was Pope Leo XIV<\/a>, who, in 2007 as Fr Robert Prevost, Prior General of the Order of St Augustine, made a presentation to two local women, Peg Bolton and Marie Finn, for 50 years of service singing in the choir.<\/p>\n

Although located in the heart of Cork city, St Augustine\u2019s was never a parish church and, as a consequence, did not host baptisms, weddings or funerals, but it was popular with those working and shopping in Cork city wishing to attend Masses or simply pray.<\/p>\n

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In recent years it had become particularly popular with members of the Polish community in Cork as Masses in Polish were celebrated there. However, many members of the Polish community have recently begun attending Masses at Holy Cross Church in Mahon.<\/p>\n

Designed by Cork-born architect Dominic O\u2019Connor, St Augustine\u2019s has two entrances \u2013 one on Washington Street and one on Grand Parade \u2013 and it first opened its doors in 1942 on the site of a priory established by the Augustinians in 1872 on what was then Great George Street.<\/p>\n

The church, reportedly built from limestone salvaged from the Mallow Railway viaduct which was blown up by anti-treaty IRA forces in early August 1922 during the Civil War, was extended in 1972 and the priory was rebuilt in 1982.<\/p>\n

According to Augustinian historian Fr Thomas Butler, the Order of St Augustine came to Cork some time between 1270 and 1300. Its first friary, later known as the Red Abbey, in the South Parish being one of 21 friaries established after the order founded its first in Dublin.<\/p>\n

St Augustine\u2019s is the second church run by a religious order to close in Cork in recent times, and follows the closure of St Vincent\u2019s Church in Sunday\u2019s Well in 2016 when the Vincentians brought more than 150 years of ministering to the people of Cork to an end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A religious community which has been ministering to the people of Cork for almost 800 years its to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[46,61,60,43,6318,145668],"class_list":["post-324394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-pope-leo-xiv","tag-religion-beliefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}