Over the last two weeks I have, periodically, been walking the streets of Dublin's coastal villages as research for a Tandem project. Nice work if you can get it. The 130 bus carried me out of the city to Bull Island and Dollymount (more on the island later) from which I walked inland through St Anne's Park to the nearest DART station, at Raheny.
Once you're through the park, the scenery takes a distinct dip in quality as you scurry on, in appropriate haste, through an unfamiliar council estate, but after a little while you come into Raheny village. A bit better. Then, turn a corner, and behold!…Our Lady Mother of Divine Grace.
Rising like a great brutal pointy gateway to another world the Roman Catholic Church was designed by architects Peppard & Duffy and completed in 1962. The main entrance is distinctly modernist; an interpretation of romanesque churches and abbeys of Ireland with that arrangement of triangles that simultaneously points to both heaven and earth.
I think I accidentally approached from the perfect angle; my first site of the building was sudden and was preceded by mundanity at best so the effect is striking.
As ever, I have to add what is becoming a standard disclaimer: I can't find much about the church online. It's built on the site of an ancient holy well of St Assam, which was the name of the previous over burdened church.
A very short entry on Archiseek notes that the overall design is, 'Not completely successful, the remainder of the church is quite boxy', and I must admit that, after looking for more interesting views of the building I found none. All the effort must have gone into the entrance but maybe that's enough. It was for me.
Raheny station is almost literally at the back of the church so my progress was hardly hindered by this diversion.
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