The church is one of the Rosary Churches built by Dr. Cornelius Lucy and was officially opened on the 25th of September 1960. It is built as a neo-classical style Latin Cross, 193 feet long and 98 feet across , and is dominated by a dome with a large bronze lantern, topped by a cross. There is seating capacity for 1000 people.
The church with it’s large dome, has acoustic problems, and church music was not well served by the location of an inadequate organ in an under-sized loft at the rear of the church.
Happily, this all changed, thanks to a number of far-sighted people, lay and clerical, who took the advice of the church’s director of music and organist, Patrick Killeen.
They engaged the services of architec, Alexander White, and commissioned a site- specific Phoenix-Renatus digital organ.
White and Killeen, together came up with an ingenious solution to the acoustical problems of the building, a solution that serves the needs of post Vatican 2 liturgy by locating the choir and the organ in the south transept, and placing the choir stalls at an angle that directs the choral sound towards the altar.( Irish Examiner 9.12.2009 )
