The Methodist Church

The Methodist Church originated in the mid-eighteenth century from the dynamic ministries of the Wesley brothers, John and Charles. 

 

  John Wesley was an Anglican Clergyman who, in 1738, experienced what has come to be called his evangelical conversion. It gave him a new confidence and sense of mission. In 1739 he, his younger brother Charles and a number of others, established religious groups called ‘Methodist’ societies within the Church of England. These soon spread throughout Britain and Ireland and after Wesley’s death became the Methodist Church which is found now throughout the world. 

 

  During his 21 visits to Ireland between 1747 and 1788 John Wesley toured most of the country. He preached in Churches when he was welcome, in hired meeting halls and in the open air. Early meetings in Dublin were held in Marlborough Street and Cork Street. The first Methodist chapel in Ireland was at Whitefriar Street in Dublin, built in 1752, the site of which was later expanded to contain a day school for boys, a school for orphan girls, a widows’ almshouse, a bookroom and houses for two ministers. 

 

  Although John Wesley landed at Dun Laoghaire when he came to Ireland, the first group of Methodists in Dun Laoghaire was formed in response to the preaching of a gifted and inspired Galway man named Gideon Ouseley in 1820. This society grew and in 1836 built a chapel on the site of the present church, a year when the railway came to Dun Laoghaire, when the new harbour led to urban growth and when the Mariner’s Church and St. Michaels R.C. were also built. 

 

  The present church was built in 1903, extended in 1958 and in 2014 its interior was redesigned.