Sts. Alphonsus and Columba

History

The parish records this as the first of its churches to be built. N. Donnelly's A Short History of Dublin Parishes, quoted by the parish, describes a site secured among the gorse and boulders on the slope of Killiney Hill by Fr Sheridan, then parish priest of Kingstown, at a time when the neighbourhood was being taken for building plots and the railway line from Kingstown had been extended along the coast. The new church was solemnly opened in 1856 and dedicated to Saints Alphonsus and Columba. The church has a spire.

Fr John Harold moved up from Cabinteely to take charge of the new church, an arrangement that continued until the death of Fr Sheridan in 1862. In 1863 Glasthule, Dalkey and Killiney were erected into a new parish, with Fr John Harold as its first parish priest. While he was still curate in Killiney he built the parochial house and the school within the church grounds.