Church of the Holy Family

History

The parish's own history records that the lands of Kill o' the Grange belonged to the Augustinian Canons of the Priory of the Holy Trinity, the builders of Christ Church Cathedral, who came here for the country air and to carry on the business of their farm estates. A village of 35 houses known as the town of the Grange housed the employees of the monastery, among them a bailiff, two smiths, a weaver and a chamberlain. The rolls of the priory record 66 labourers employed on the thinning and weeding of crops and 88 men at work on a single day at harvest. Clay from the soil near the village was sold for making earthenware vessels and became a source of revenue to the priory, and the parish suggests that the name of Pottery Road derives from this. The priory was dissolved under Henry VIII in 1539 and its establishment was reconstructed as the cathedral of the church of the Holy Trinity, later Christ Church.

The ruined Church of St Fintan on St Fintan's Park and the house called Kill Abbey, which is surrounded by yew trees of great age, stood at the centre of that property. The parish records that the church on St Fintan's Park may date from the tenth century, and that the ruin has suffered vandalism and the breaking of headstones.

The present parish of Kill o' the Grange was created in 1972 from the parishes of Monkstown and Dun Laoghaire.