St.Andrew's & St.Mary's parishes, Dublin

Newstreet

I have some RC baptisms and marriages in St.Andrew's parish (1804) and St.Mary's Pro-Cathedral (1815), among others.

However, with the penal laws, St.Mary's Pro-Cathedral was not built until 1825, and St.Andrew's in Westland Row until 1834.

Is there any learned suggestion where RC baptisms and marriages were carried out in these parishes before the RC churches were built, as the available records go back much further than the churches?

St.Michan's RC in Halston Street was the earliest, built in 1814.

pinkypinky

St Andrew's website says they worked in makeshift chapels wherever they could.

The Pro-Cathedral website says there was an earlier chapel built in Liffey St in 1729.

Newstreet

Brilliant, thanks!

pedroeibar1

To expand on Pinky's comments/links a little-

The reason big churches were not built primarily was financial and not the Penal Laws- the R. Catholic population did not have spare cash to donate for building projects. There were a few exceptions, mainly in cities where there was more cash/wealthier merchants/RCs. The Cathedral of St. Mary & St Anne in Cork is another example, it was started in 1797 and finished in 1809, twenty years before Catholic Emancipation. The RC Church was getting into its stride after Emancipation when the Famine happened; that was amonetary blow to its coffers, and it took another almost 20 years to start church-building - the era when many churches in Ireland were built.

Only the Established Church (C of Irl) had 'churches', the other Christian sects had 'chapels' or 'meeting houses'. Catholics had chapels (often referred to as 'mass houses') and once they were not places of sedition or annoyed the authorities they were ignored.

Although legally the practice of the RC religion was banned , the Acts were not enforced and Catholics went to Mass when they wanted to; the vast majority of the population remained untouched. No fines for recusancy/non-attendance at Divine Service were levied. The Catholic Priest-to-parishioner ratio in the Ireland of 1720 was considerably higher than today. Occasionally there were a few nutter priest-hunters at the time of Cromwell but they were the exception, not the rule, just as the (few) RC's persecuted tended to be from the powerful Old Irish families, not ordinary folk, and the use of the laws was to enforce a land-grab.