The surviving portico, pillars and pediment of Centenary Methodist Church on Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
The façade of the former Centenary Methodist Church on the south side of Saint Stephen’s Green has one of the most impressive surviving classical porticos in Dublin, rivalled only by the GPO on O’Connell Street, te former Houses of Parliament or Bank of Ireland on College Green, Saint Mary’s Pro-Cathedral on Marlborough Street, or, perhaps, the former Saint George’s Church on Temple Street or Adelaide Road Presbyterian Church.
At one time, there were three churches on Saint Stephen’s Green, the other two being Newman’s Catholic University Church, also on the south side of the Green, and the Unitarian Church on the west side, and which I was writing about yesterday (6 October 2024).
In addition, there were chapels in Wesley College, once shared a campus with Centenary Methodist Church, and in Saint Vincent’s Hospital, Loreto College, the Dominican Hall Covent and the former palace of the Church of Ireland Archbishops of Dublin at No 16 on the north side, where I had lunch in Peploe’s 10 days ago (27 September 2024) with my year group from Gormanston College (1969).
The church took its name from the Methodism celebrations in 1838-1839 of the centenary of the conversion of John and Charles Wesley on Whitsunday, 21 May 1738.
The Methodist congregation on Saint Stephen’s Green traced its story back to the first visit of John Wesley to Dublin in 1747. During his 21 visits to Ireland between 1747 and 1788, Wesley toured most of the country, preaching in churches, hired halls and in the open air. Early meetings in Dublin were held in Marlborough Street and Cork Street, and a congregation used a disused Lutheran Meeting House near the present Abbey Theatre.
That first Methodist chapel in Dublin was wrecked by a mob, and a number of other temporary chapels followed before the first purpose-built Methodist church in Ireland was built on Whitefriar Street in 1752, on land that was leased for 99 years.
In time, the site was expanded to include a day boys, a school for orphan girls, housing for two minister’s residence, a widows’ almshouse and a book room.
The Methodist celebrations of the Welsey centenary in 1839 generated immense enthusiasm and generosity. Throughout Britain and Ireland, £220,000 was raised – perhaps the equivalent of more than £29 million today. The money was to be used for outreach at home and abroad and £5,000 was allocated in Ireland to build a new ‘Centenary Church’ on Saint Stephen’s Green.
The site was bought for £1,700 and the new church designed by the Dublin architect Isaac Farrell (1798-1877) was built in 1842-1843. Farrell who was responsible for many Methodist churches, including the Methodist church on Charleston Road, Ranelagh, as well as Donegall Square Methodist Church in Belfast and Adelaide Road Presbyterian Church in Dublin.
The church was a good example of the early Victorian classical church design favoured by Methodists during that period. Its well-balanced proportions broke the continuity of the Georgian-style terraces that dominate this part of Dublin. It was a five-bay two-storey church, with a tetrastyle Ionic portico to the central three bays and with a dentilled pediment.
The 99-year lease on the chapel site in Whitefriar Street was running out, and the congregation moved into the prestigious new church in June 1843.
The Methodist interest in education prompted the foundation in 1845 of the Wesleyan Connexional School by a group of Methodist ministers and others for the Methodist community on land to the rear of the church and adjoining Iveagh Gardens. It renamed Wesley College in 1879.
The gates that once led into Wesley College, beside the former Centenary Methodist Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The Revd William Benjamin Lumley (1854-1942) recalled a church at peace with itself, warm and friendly, deeply and very generously committed to overseas missions, a church enlivened by attendance of the boy and girl boarders from neighbouring Wesley College.
The congregation continued to worship in the Methodist Centenary Church for over a century. Then, on Sunday 22 December 1968, members of the congregation arriving for a morning carol service were greeted by a charred ruin of smoking embers. The fire was started by a disgruntled former caretaker the night before.
Over half a century later, I still remember the traumatic impact of that fire on my Methodist friends and neighbours.
Following the fire, the congregation worshipped for a time in the Memorial Chapel in Wesley College until the school moved to Ballinteer in the south Dublin suburbs.
Methodist Centenary Church received several offers of hospitality before accepting an invitation in 1972 from Christ Church, Leeson Park, the Church of Ireland parish church beside the Molyneux Home for the Blind.
The insurance payout and the sale of the site on Saint Stephen’s Green paid for a suite of buildings called Wesley House for the use of both congregations. A church hall, student accommodation, a manse for a student chaplain and meeting rooms were completed in 1977 and these are linked to Litton Hall, built 100 years earlier as a workshop for the blind. The site, now known as Wesley House, also has a grass area, lime trees and herb garden.
When Christ Church was leased to the Romanian Orthodox Church in 2005, Litton Hall became an ideal space for the Methodist Centenary congregation.
Meanwhile, a new, five-storey office block was built behind the principal north façade of the former Centenary Church in 1975. In the redevelopment, the temple-like portico of the former church was preserved, including the four pillars with ionic capitals, the pediment, the steps and the cast-iron railings.
For a time, the building was a bank and then home to the offices of the Department of Justice. The Department has since moved to 51 Saint Stephen’s Green, and the building now numbered No 94 is the Irish headquarters of Kennedy Wilson, a global real estate investment company with $27 billion of assets under management.
Despite the extensive alterations over the past half century, the elevation of the former church remains an imposing presence on the south side of Saint Stephen’s Green, and a reminder of Methodist history and heritage in Dublin.
The building is part of the historic character of Saint Stephen’s Green, close to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Iveagh House, the Museum of Literature Ireland in Newman House, Newman University Church and the Iveagh Gardens.
The façade of former Centenary Methodist Church … now the Irish headquarters of Kennedy Wilson (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
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