Patrick Comerford
I have often said in jest that I was born between a synagogue and a laundry and across the road from a cinema.
But Terenure Laundry – still celebrated in trade union lore for a 14-week strike led by Mai Clifford – closed soon after I was born on Rathfarnham Road. The site at 14-18 Rathfarnham Road was later the premises of the Sunday World, and now it’s the site of Lidl in Terenure.
The Classic Cinema was at 11-13 Rathfarnham Road, across the road from both the laundry and the synagogue. It opened in 1938, and when it closed in 1976, Albert Kelly transferred the name of the Classic to the former Kenilworth Cinema in Harold’s Cross – but it too is long gone.
Now it looks as though the third landmark that defined that stretch of Rathfarnham Road where I was born is about to disappear too, and that Dublin’s largest synagogue is soon to be demolished.
Gordon Deegan reported in The Irish Times yesterday (18 September 2025) that An Coimisiún Pleanála (ACP), the Irish Planning Commission, has approved a plan to demolish Dublin’s largest synagogue to make way for a 60-unit apartment scheme.
The Dublin Hebrew Congregation endorses the redevelopment, but the plan has been opposed by some local residents who say the area would is going to lose an important historical landmark. ACP has granted planning permission to Granbrind Terenure Ltd for the apartment block scheme on the 0.54 ha site on Rathfarnham Road, Terenure, where the synagogue and has been since 1952.
ACP granted planning permission after concluding that the proposal ‘would provide for a compact and sustainable form of urban development at a highly accessible location, would not seriously injure the visual or residential amenities of the area and would not adversely impact the character of the area.’
A letter on behalf of the Dublin Hebrew Congregation in July 2024 gave full support to the application. The signatories to the letter include the Chief Rabbi of Ireland, the Very Revd Yoni Wieder, whose inauguration had taken place in the synagogue two months earlier.
Dublin City Council granted planning permission for the scheme in April, but the development was stalled after an appeal by the Terenure Residents’ Association, Wasdale Park residents and Greenmount Lawns residents.
The residents who oppose the demolition of the synagogue site say the landmark building with its five Stars of David and stained-glass windows would be a huge loss to the history of the Jewish community living in the area. They argue the proposed apartment blocks would result be an overbearing and intrusive presence and overshadow adjoining properties.
As part of a 105-page inspector’s report, the ACP inspector Ms Mary Kennelly agreed ‘that the demolition of these buildings is appropriate’. She said the synagogue building ‘is not a protected structure and has not been assessed as being of architectural or historical significance and is unsuitable for repurposing and reuse’.
She also said it was intended to reuse the stained-glass windows in a future synagogue site and it was accepted these would not be suitable for use in other community buildings. Ms Kennelly said the proposed demolition and redevelopment of the site would benefit the community. A report said the new development would provide new housing units in an area of such high population growth, and within close proximity of the city centre.
A spokesperson for the Dublin Hebrew Congregation told The Irish Times last year it planned to move to a more suitably sized facility as the space was too large for its needs.
The synagogue is a distinctive building in the Terenure and Rathfarnham areas of south Dublin, clearly visible and identifiable with windows with five Stars of David over 10 squared panels. It was designed by the architect Wilfred Cantwell (1921-2000) and was dedicated in 1953.
I had been born a few doors away, at No 28 Rathfarnham Road, and lived part of my childhood at No 104 Rathfarnham Road. My father was born in Rathmines and spent his childhood in Terenure. Although my parents lived for much of their life in Harold’s Cross, they later lived in Rathfarnham Wood.
The Terenure synagogue at No 32-34 Rathfarnham Road was designed by the Irish architect Wilfred Cantwell and dates back to a meeting in 1936, when it was agreed to set up a synagogue in the Rathmines, Rathgar or Terenure area to cater for families in those suburbs who found it was too far to walk on Saturdays to the synagogues on Adelaide Road or at Greenville Hall on the South Circular Road.
The shul started in rented rooms at 6 Grosvenor Place, Rathmines, and moved when No 52 Grosvenor Road was bought in 1940. At Rosh Hashanah, 4 October 1948, the congregation moved from Rathmines to a Nissen hut in the grounds of ‘Leoville’ on Rathfarnham Road, bought a few years earlier for £1,490 on behalf of the congregation by Woulfe Freedman and Erwin Goldwater.
Building work on the new synagogue began in August 1952, shortly after I was born, and it was completed and dedicated on 30 August 1953.
During his career, the architect Wilfrid Cantwell worked with Michael Scott, alongside Kevin Roche, Kevin Fox and Robin Walker, and worked on Bus Arús, Dublin. He later worked with JN Kidney before setting up his own practice (1947-1975). He attained distinction in the area of church architecture, particularly in the years immediately after Vatican II. From 1976 until he retired in 1993, he specialised as a consultant in church design.
Cantwell said his new synagogue in Terenure met the committee’s specifications for a building that would ‘cost less than half the normal place, look as if it cost the full amount and be an example of good modern design.’ It was praised for its ‘original, modern, commanding and attractive design.’
The ‘master builder’ of the synagogue was the Dublin timber merchant Sam Noyek, who built the synagogue with a capacity for 600 people.
Terenure Synagogue was supported by or attracted a number of Jewish families to this part of Terenure and Rathfarnham, including the Leon, Citron, Lazarus, Gafson, Khan and Davis families who lived on Rathfarnham Road.
In typical Dublin wit, some members of the Adelaide Road synagogue, which was regarded as more middle class, referred to the new synagogue opposite the Classic Cinema as the ‘cinema-gogue.’
The shul was set on fire on Wednesday 9 February 1966. Several Siffrei Torah were destroyed, and the shul itself was very badly damaged. The Nissen hut that had been turned into a function hall was quickly converted back into a shul, and no Shabbat services were missed.
The newly refurbished synagogue was rededicated on Sunday 26 May 1968. Its features include the striking stained-glass windows on the north and south walls by Stanley Tomlin, who began his career in the Harry Clarke Studios in 1932.
At extraordinary meetings of the Terenure and Adelaide Road congregations in January 1999, the two congregations agreed to merge. It was agreed that the Adelaide Road Synagogue would be sold, and that some of the proceeds of the sale would be used to build a new synagogue complex, including a new mikveh and a community centre, on the grounds at Rathfarnham Road.
From then on, the Terenure Synagogue hosted the members of the former synagogue on Adelaide Road. This arrangements continued until 15 December 2004, when both congregations held simultaneous extraordinary general meetings and agreed to merge as the new Dublin Hebrew Congregation.
The agreed new synagogue was never built, and Terenure Synagogue is the only major Orthodox synagogue in the Republic of Ireland.
Maurice Cohen, chair of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, said the decision to sell the Terenure synagogue is not so much ‘a story of decline’ as one of changing patterns of practice among Jews in Ireland. ‘As with most religions, attendance at services is not as great as it used to be,’ he told Patsy McGarry of The Irish Times in May 2023.
Indeed, despite widespread reports of decline, the Jewish population in Ireland is growing. The 2022 census shows there were 2,193 Jewish people in Ireland, a drop since the figure of 2,557 in 2016. But both figures are higher than the figure of 1,984 in 2011, and other statistics show the Jewish population in Ireland may even be higher.
The Institute for Jewish Population Research, which uses four key definitions to describe the size of the Jewish population in different countries, offers these figures for the Jewish population in Ireland: the ‘core’ Jewish population, 2,700; population with Jewish parents, 3,348; enlarged Jewish population, 3,966; the ‘Law of Return’ Jewish population, 4,644.
Much of the steady increase is attributed to employees of multinational companies working in Ireland. Maurice Cohen said at the time, however, that the upkeep of the Terenure synagogue is ‘very expensive’ and figures for attendance at services ‘have gone down dramatically.’ This is exacerbated as ‘the older generation passes away while younger people were less likely to attend. It is an issue Judaism is debating.’
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
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