Pavee Point's Home: The former Free Church
 The former Free Church has been home to Pavee
Point since 1989.
The Free Church is a listed building of historic, literary and architectural
significance. Built in 1800 by the Methodists, the church once served the upper
classes who lived around then-fashionable Mountjoy Square. (It was called the
"Free Church" because no pew rents were paid, in keeping with the spirit of the
evangelical movement.) At the time, the area was considered the best in the city,
with one 1820 commentator remarking that "the inhabitants of this parish are indeed
almost exclusively of the upper ranks."
In 1820, the Methodists built their central church in nearby Abbey Street, and so no
longer needed the Free Church. Because the landlord would not allow the building to
be sold to the Catholic Church, it was bought by the Anglicans and reconsecrated in 1828,
as a plaque above the door still records.
Apart from the church's obvious historic religious and aesthetic value, the building
has a literary claim to fame, arising from a rather unflattering mention in the Wandering
Rocks section of Joyce's Ulysses:
"Father Conmee walked down Great Charles Street and glanced at the shutup free
church on his left. The reverend T. R. Green B. A. will (D. V.) speak. The incumbent they
called him. He felt it incumbent on him to say a few words. But one should be charitable.
Invincible ignorance. They acted according to their lights."
By the end of the nineteenth century, Mountjoy Square and the surrounding area had lost
its desirable status. The Free Church remained in use as a church until 1988, when
repair costs proved too much for the parish. When the building was put up for sale
with restrictions on its use, it was bought by Pavee Point (then known as the Dublin
Travellers Education and Development Group).
The church was renovated for use by the organisation. One of the guiding
principles of the renovation was that the building could someday be converted back for use
as a church, should the need arise. The award-winning redesign of the church
incorporates a new structure within the church interior--essentially a house within a
house. As the Architects' Journal stated at the time, "[a]lthough dramatic in
its consequence, this solution manages to preserve most of the historic fabric, create the
sort of accommodation required by the new use. . . and, most important, all is
reversible."
The building today serves a variety of groups from the local provides a range of spaces
for training/education programmes; a health programme; youth work programme; women’s
programmes; a cultural heritage programme; a day care facility; meetings, seminars and
conferences; the Travellers’ Resource Warehouse; cultural events, exhibitions and
other activities. It serves a variety of groups from the Traveller community, groups from
the local settled community and increasing numbers from the wider settled community in
Ireland and abroad.
Pavee Point is currently raising funds to pay for urgent and essential repairs to the
building. When the building work is completed, the stone facade will be preserved,
the elegant railings along the perimeter of the property will be reconditioned, and the
building will have improved access for people with disabilities.
The organisation is proud of the building's historic nature. In the words of an
author of a guide to Dublin's historic churches,
"This firmly classical building, its plain granite facade topped by an undecorated
pediment, speaks of the theological views of its builders. They would have approved
of its renewal of life in the service of the community."
(Peter Costello's Dublin Churches, published in 1989 by Gill and
MacMillan, was used in the compilation of this information.)
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