The parish of St Thomas was created in 1749 by an act of the Irish Parliament. This came about as the result of the older parish of St Mary being considered too large to be administered to by one single incumbent, and so the parish of St Thomas came in to effect on 24 March 1749, being predominantly the eastern part of the parish of St Mary. The specific boundaries of this new parish are incredibly detailed, mentioning specific houses and buildings where the boundary line moves in an unexpected direction. In a general sense, the River Liffey formed the border of the parish to the south, while the south–side of Great Britain Street (now Parnell Street) formed its northern boundary. The new parish had its western boundary as the west–side of Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street), thereby meeting the parish of St Mary’s. There is little said about the eastern–boundary of the parish is understandable: The map of Dublin found in Watson’s Almanac in 1783 shows little actual development east of what is now Amiens Street (called on the map the ‘road to Ballybough Bridge’).

In 1757, the Rt Hon Charles Gardiner presented a site on Marlborough Street for a parish church, and construction began the following year. The church was built from designs by John Smith – who had also designed St Catherine’s on Thomas Street – and modelled on Palladio’s Redentore in Venice. The church was completed in 1762, and was consecrated on the feast day of St Thomas, 21 December of that year by the Archbishop of Dublin, Charles Cobbe.

The parish of St Thomas in 1762 served what was a very fashionable part of Dublin, particularly the area around Rutland Square (now Parnell Square), which was home to many members of the nobility, as well as leading craftsmen, artists, and tradesmen. However, over the following years, this area would see a gradual but steady decline in terms of its desirability and by the dawn of the 20th century, St Thomas’s church was serving a much changed area, and in terms of the numbers of parishioners, one that was substantially reduced.

1920 saw the beginning of a turbulent and destructive period in the history of both the church and the parish of St Thomas. In 1920, the incumbent, Revd Edward George Burland (1872–1946) resigned, and the parish was in charge of the curate, Hugh Wilson Donald (1876–1940). With the union of the parishes of St Thomas’s and St Barnabas’s in June 1922, the new rector would be the ‘building parson’ of St Barnabas’s church, the Revd David Henry Hall (1873–1940).

By late–June 1922, St Thomas’s church found itself in the middle of what would become known as the Battle of Dublin, the beginning of Ireland’s Civil War. Fighting spread throughout Dublin, and by early July, Anti–Treaty IRA units from the Dublin Brigade had occupied much of O’Connell Street. In order to secure these buildings, it was felt necessary to occupy certain buildings on Marlborough Street, including St Thomas’s church. The church suffered extensive damage as the National Army fired on the ‘irregulars’ stationed in the church from Gloucester Street. Some 30 of these anti–Treaty soldiers that had occupied St Thomas’s church surrendered in early July, and were brought directly to Amiens Street Station (now Connolly Station). However, fire from buildings damaged on O’Connell Street spread to Marlborough Street on 6 July 1922, and the church was gutted, with only the four walls left in place. The fire would also lead to the damage of much of the administration records that were being kept in the church at the time.

The loss of the beautiful church building was lamented throughout Dublin and Ireland, being extensively reported in the daily newspapers of the time. Indeed, the destruction of the church was mentioned in parliamentary questions at Westminster by then Minister for the Colonies, Winston Churchill MP, responding to suggestions that there was a sectarian element in the destruction. Mr Churchill noted that:

I understand that in the particular case in question, the Protestant church is believed to have caught fire from the neighbouring buildings, due to the direction of the wind, and that the firemen did, in fact, do everything in their power to prevent its destruction… (The Irish Times, 20 July 1922).

In the immediate aftermath of the fire damage to the old church, a licence was issued on 13 July 1922 to hold services in the parochial hall, situated just to the north of the shell of the old building, where the new St Thomas’s church would be constructed.

The New Church

The building of the new church was a somewhat complicated process, delayed as it was until the summer of 1928 with discussions between the parish, the Diocesan Council, and the Representative Church Body with regards to compensation claims. A further complication was the decision by Dublin City Council to extend Gloucester Street (now Sean MacDermott Street) to meet O’Connell Street to form one wide thoroughfare. The opening of this thoroughfare – linking O’Connell Street to the North Strand – meant re–interring the remains from the old graveyard of St Thomas’s church to Mount Jerome Ceremony, although some were claimed by relatives and moved elsewhere. This left a small parcel of land where the old parochial hall (1855–6) of St Thomas’s church had once stood. Although substantially reduced in size from the previous church, the new building would more than adequately meet the needs of the current parish of St Thomas.

The new building was recognised as being architecturally important from the outset, winning the inaugural Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (RIAI) Gold Medal for Architecture for the years 1929–31, as well as the silver medal at the Tailtean Exhibition. Designed by Frederick Hicks (1870–1965), it is described as being in the form of ‘a somewhat free Lombardic style’. Mr Hicks, born in Banbury, Oxfordshire, moved to Dublin in 1890, and became a well–known architect who worked on public housing projects throughout Dublin (including Marino, Mount Pleasant Buildings and Gulistan Cottages), Rathmines Carnegie Library and Technical Institute, as well as one of his best–known works, that of the Iveagh Markets for the Iveagh Trust.

The church was designed in proportion to its surroundings at the time, being bound by Marlborough Street to the west, Findlater Place to the north, and the then–unnamed Cathal Brugha Street to the south. The exterior of the church is clad in diminutive red bricks, and particularly striking is the square–plan bell tower to the south of the nave with an open–arcaded belfry. This is complimented by a smaller tower on the north side of the structure which features a chimney–stack. Between these two towers, many articles make note of the unusual use of the arcaded cast–stone loggia on the east–side of the church. The front of the church faces O’Connell Street, and features a five–bay granite portico as well topped with a Catherine Wheel window.

The church is described in The Irish Architect (being the journal of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, 180, September 2002) as consisting of ‘nave and aisles with an apsidal east–end, choir and clergy vestries, [and] organ chamber’. It is interesting to note that the internal design of the church necessarily had to take into consideration the converging streets surrounding the building, so the aisles taper in response to this. The parish Blotter Calendar and Year Book published in 1934 notes that ‘the nave is 70 feet long by 22 feet wide and the aisles are 7 feet wide’, while ‘the nave arcade is supported on Portland stone columns with richly carved capitals of Byzantine character’. The Year Book also notes that ‘[t]he Communion Rail is of alabaster and green Connemara marble, and the pulpit of similar marble, with antique Sienna panels and a base of Botticino marble’. The newly–built church also retained the old font which had been used in the parochial hall, and which was presented to the parish by St Mark’s church after the destruction of the old St Thomas’s church. The foundation stone can be seen on the inside of the church, on the left hand side, near the entrance doors. The foundation stone of the old St Thomas’s church was saved from the ruin of that building, and was placed in the new building during construction.

This was not Mr Hicks’s first association with the Church of Ireland, as he was closely involved with the St Barnabas Public Utility Service, formed in January 1920 by Revd Hall, resulting in the realisation of a number of social housing projects in the parish of St Barnabas, in East Wall. His final association with the Church of Ireland was his burial in St Andrew’s church, Malahide in a grave marked by a tombstone of his own design.