St Mary's Chapel of Ease (the Black Church), St Mary's Place, Dublin

In the eighteenth century the style generally favoured by architects and patrons alike was Classical. Indeed it continued to be popular into the early nineteenth century, with great churches like St George's, Hardwicke Street and the famous 'Pepper canister Church' at Mount Street being erected in its early decades. However, tastes were beginning to shift towards the Gothic, even by the turn of the century. When it was decided to erect a new church in Dublin Castle, Gothic, rather than the ever popular Classical, was chosen. After there followed a boom in Gothic church building, initially sponsored by the Church of Ireland, but later adopted by the Catholic Church and the smaller denominations. However, many of these churches differed greatly in both style and decoration, sometimes owing to denominational and theological differences. Some of these differences on the other hand were more to do with the architect, as was the case with St Mary's. The architect there was John Semple (1801-82), well-known for his innovative and eclectic interpretations of Gothic at Tallaght and Monkstown. Temple's 'Black Church' with its needle-like pinnacles and dramatic west front dates from 1830. The chapel's crowning glory is, however, its interior parabolic roof, in which the walls lean inward from floor level. The church was closed for worship in 1962, and is now used as office space. 

By the early 1800s the parish system that had served Dublin City since medieval times was in need of renewal. The city's population which had traditionally clustered around the old city to the south, and to a lesser extent in the three parishes north of Liffey, was fast spreading its wings and moving to new suburban developments. In the north of the city, St Mary's parish was to be given a 'chapel of ease' within its boundaries, to cater for the large number of its parishioners now living further and further away from its traditional core. The newly erected chapel soon became known among the public as the 'Black Chapel', as the calp stone used in building turned a dark colour after rain. A different explanation was remembered in the poet Austin Clarke's memoirs, Twice Round the Black Church (1962), that said if a person was to run around the church twice at midnight the devil would steal their soul! The church is also briefly mentioned in James Joyce's Ulyssees, Joyce himself having lived temporarily at nearby  Fontenoy Street.