Mass & Service Times
Sunday
- 12:00
Saturday
- 12:00 Vigil
- 17:30 Vigil
Weekdays
- 12:00
- 19:00
About Immaculate Conception
Immaculate Conception is a Roman Catholic parish church in Dublin, Co. Dublin. It is part of the Dublin Archdiocese.
History
The Franciscans have lived and worked on the south side of the river Liffey in Dublin since 1232. When the Black Death swept through Dublin in 1338, 24 Franciscans were among the thousands who died, and in 1540, during the Reformation, the friary at Francis Street, on the site of the present church of St Nicholas of Myra, was confiscated and the community dispersed.
In the following century the friars worked secretly in the Cook Street area, saying Mass in the Adam and Eve Tavern, from which the present church takes its popular name. Following Catholic Emancipation the friars were able to build a new church at Merchants Quay, and the foundation stone was laid in 1834.
Notable features
The National Shrine in honour of St Anthony was built in 1912 and a reconstructed shrine opened in 1937. After a fire in 1981 the shrine was redecorated and re-opened by the Papal Nuncio in 1983. The shrine has 13 votive lamps, a reminder of the devotion of the thirteen Tuesdays.
The mosaic over the altar, by G. Hajnal, is based on the Risen Christ in glory. Four angels around the statue of St Anthony carry symbols associated with him: bread for the poor, a fish as an ancient sign of the Eucharist, a gospel book and lilies blessed on his feast. The murals are the work of Muriel Brandt and show the saint appearing to a Portuguese woman, the origin of the devotion of St Anthony's Brief.
