St. Colmcille

History

The parish was constituted on 1 October 1974 and placed under the patronage of St Colmcille, taking its name from St Colmcille's Well on the Ballycullen road. Housing estates were then still being built at Knocklyon, and early residents went to Mass at the Carmelite convent chapel on the Firhouse Road. Ballyroan was designated as parish church for the area, while daily Mass was held in the presbytery and evening Masses in the homes of parishioners.

A general meeting at Terenure College in November 1974, attended by 70 people, elected the first parish council, which treated finding a Mass centre as its priority. The canteen of McInerney's site office, a rough wooden building, was made available to the parish and the first Mass was celebrated there on 15 December 1974. As the congregation outgrew it, the parish committee sought permission from Archbishop's House to erect a temporary church. A parishioner gave an unexpected donation of £10,000, a site was purchased and plans were submitted, and the first Mass in the temporary Church of St Colmcille was celebrated on 10 August 1975. Partitioned, the building also served as a meeting place for parish groups.

Plans for a permanent church were well under way in 1979, the year Pope John Paul II blessed its foundation stone during his visit to Maynooth. The Church of St Colmcille was opened in April 1980.