Landmark Cork city centre church to host final Mass service on Sunday

“Closing down Mass, Sunday 12th July at 11.30am,” reads a sign on the door of St Augustine’s Church in Cork, “No tickets needed”.

That Mass will bring to a close a chapter of Cork’s history that dates back more than 750 years. The news, which came in February, that the Augustinian order would be leaving, was met with sadness by parishioners in the city-centre church.

St Augustine’s, located at the corner of Washington St and the Grand Parade, was built in 1942 on the site of an earlier chapel dating back to 1872, and its adjoining priory was built in 1982.

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

Great pain and sadness

The Augustinian presence on the banks of the Lee dates back 755 years to the foundation of Red Abbey in the South Parish, and the ruin of the old medieval belfry tower still stands on the site.

The friars left Cork in the 17th century in the wake of the Reformation, returning a century later to what is now St Augustine’s Street.

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

“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. We are also getting older and less able.”

In 2026, the order in Ireland has 55 friars, only 10 of whom are under 70, and more than half of all of its priests are over 80, with only two under the age of 50.

In 2005, when Pope Leo XIV was Bishop Robert Prevost and prior general — global head — of the Order of St Augustine, he visited Cork.

The church has played a central role in the social and religious life of the city centre for the past eight decades, having a personal connection for many of those who lived their lives in Cork and beyond.

General Tom Barry

War of Independence hero General Tom Barry, who lived in Daunt Square, regularly attended Mass at St Augustine’s, perhaps because the Augustinians took a more liberal approach than the wider Church to those who opposed the Treaty.

During the Civil War, the Catholic Church denied the sacraments to anti-Treaty fighters, in effect excommunicating them.

Taoiseach Jack Lynch is known to have attended Mass in the Augustinian Church, and the current Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, recalls that his late uncle Buddy, Micheal Corbett, used to bring the young Martin's there for Sunday Mass, and afterwards to the Long Valley pub.

“He was a childhood friend of the late Peadar Moynihan, who owned the Long Valley,” Mr Martin said. “My uncle would have a few pints, and we would have rock shandies and crisps.

“My uncle would tell me: ‘Don’t forget, Mick, the Augustinians gave your grandparents communion after they were excommunicated during the Civil War’.”

Mr Martin’s grandparents, Michael Corbett from Mitchelstown and Margaret Ahern from Top Cross, Leamlara, opposed the Treaty, but were given communion by the Augustinians.

“I actually said that to the Pope recently, that we have a soft spot for the Augustinians,” Mr Martin said.

Christy Ring's medal

Christy Ring, who lived around the corner, was a daily communicant, and in 1954 he donated his eighth All-Ireland medal to the church, to be melted down and incorporated into a chalice.

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

Gerald Goldberg, Cork’s first Jewish lord mayor, donated a large painting of St Augustine, which is still displayed in the church.

For this newspaper, too, there is a personal connection: for much of his 70-year career, the late Echo Boy Jerry Cronin had his “office” inside St Augustine’s front door.