Religious Buildings

Unitarian Church

Contact Details

The Princes Street (Unitarian) Church was built between 1710 -1717 as a dissenting protestant meeting house and is still home to Cork's Unitarian Congregation. Some of its distinguished parishioners include Rev T D Hincks, founder of the Royal Cork Institution (precursor to C.I.T), artist Daniel MacAlise, and Lord Mayor Richard Dowden.  The Father Mathew Temperance Agreement was signed in this church in 1839.

About the Structure: Steeply pitched slate roof. Sand/cement rendered walls, ruled and lined at ground floor, roughcast above, having limestone string course at first floor level and concave limestone detail to eaves. Rubble stone walls to south gable. Oval windows with limestone surrounds and tripartite timber sliding sash windows. Square-headed door opening having moulded limestone architrave with cornice and pulvinated frieze. Retaining interior features. Ashlar limestone piers flanking wrought-iron double-leaf gates.

Appraisal : Dating to the early eighteenth century, this church is recorded as the oldest place of worship in the city. It was built to replace an earlier meeting house at Watergate Lane in the medieval city which had become too small for the congregation. It was one of the first structures built outside the medieval city walls on the eastern marshes.  The site for the new church was found in the recently laid out streets of the expanding city. The plan and lay out differs substantially from contemporary churches of the Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland and Presbyterian traditions in the city. The interior is essentially square, surrounded on three sides on both ground and gallery levels by congregation seating. It is an auditory church, designed to allow the congregation to hear the preacher or clergyman, rather than follow a service at a distance. Still in its original use, the building is a significant contributor to the social and architectural heritage.

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