Decision to close Cork city church made ‘with great pain and sadness’

The decision to close one of Cork city centre’s best-known Catholic churches has been described by the religious order that owns the building as akin to the death of a family member.

Parishioners at St Augustine’s Church, which is located at the corner of Washington St and the Grand Parade, were informed on Saturday afternoon that the church will close permanently this summer.

The church is owned and run by the Augustinian friars, with the consent of the diocese of Cork and Ross.

St Augustine’s was built in 1942 on the site of an earlier chapel dating back to 1872. The adjoining priory was built in 1982.

The church’s closure will bring to an end the order’s presence in Cork, which dates back 755 years to the founding of Red Abbey in the South Parish.

Fr Paddy O’Reilly, vicar provincial of the Augustinian Order in Ireland, told the congregation at a vigil Mass in the church on Saturday that the decision to withdraw from Cork had been made with “great pain and sadness”.

Decline in vocations

Fr O’Reilly said that from the mid-1970s, when the Augustinians had 234 priests in Ireland, the order had witnessed “a slow but accelerating decline in vocations”.

“In the early 70s, we would have expected at least 12 novices and three to four ordinations every year,” he said.

“Today, we would be lucky to have one novice and most years we have no ordinations.”

In 2026, the order has only 10 Irish friars under 70. More than half of all of its 55 priests are over 80, he said.

Fr O’Reilly said one of the considerations informing the order in its decision to close its Washington St church was the knowledge that “Cork city centre is well served by Franciscans, Capuchins, Dominicans, and by an abundance of diocesan churches”.

He said the order empathised with Cork’s Catholic community and shared in its loss and pain, adding that the closure was “as though a member of the family has died”.

Saturday afternoon’s Mass was well-attended, and Fr O’Reilly’s announcement was met first with silence from the congregation and then applause.

Sincere gratitude

The bishop of Cork and Ross, Bishop Fintan Gavin, said he had had learned of the decision of the Augustinians to withdraw from Cork “with great sadness”, but with decline in vocations and the ageing profile of the order, he understood and respected that decision.

Expressing his “sincere gratitude to the Augustinian friars, past and present”, the bishop said the Catholic Church would “continue to find new ways of placing Christ, his Church, and a spirit of welcome and worship at the heart of our city.

“The faith that was nurtured for generations within the walls of St Augustine’s will continue to live on and bear fruit in the hearts of its people and in the life of our city,” he said.

War of Independence hero General Tom Barry, who lived in Daunt Square, regularly attended Mass at St Augustine's.

For much of his 70-year career, Echo Boy Jerry Cronin had his “office” inside St Augustine’s front door.

In the late 1950s, a very young Rory Gallagher played in the parish hall at the back of the church.

Pope Leo XIV visited St Augustine’s in 2005, when he was Bishop Robert Prevost, global head of the Augustinian Order.

St Augustine’s Church will close its doors permanently after 11.30am Mass on Sunday, July 12.