Cork Methodist Church

History

Methodist preaching in Cork is first recorded on 2 June 1748, when Thomas Williams and Robert Swindells conducted a preaching round in the city. Charles Wesley arrived in August of that year and preached at Hammond's Marsh. A chapel was built there in 1752, which the church's own history describes as the second Methodist preaching house in Ireland, and John Wesley preached in it in 1756. He visited Cork for the last time in 1789.

In 1797 the Bishop of Cork granted the Methodists the use of the Huguenot French Church. By 1804 it was found too small and the decision was taken to build on the newly reclaimed St Patrick's Street. Wesley Chapel opened for worship on 17 April 1805 and remained in use until 1986, when it was sold in preparation for the development at Ardfallen.

Other Methodist work in the city included a small chapel at Barracton, which served military personnel at the nearby Victoria Barracks and was rebuilt in 1852, and a church with a hall and schoolrooms which opened on Military Road in 1895 and remained in use until 1949, when it was sold to the Roman Catholic Church.

A division in Irish Methodism in 1818 produced a second body, the Primitive Wesleyan Methodist Connexion, whose Cork members used the French Church. That building was demolished in 1841 and a larger church built on the site. The two bodies reunited in 1878, and worship in the French Church premises continued until 1897.