Parish of Raheny (Church of Ireland)

The Parish of Raheny is the modern successor in the Church of Ireland to an early (1152) parish, in Raheny, a district of Dublin reputed to be a site of Christian settlement back to 570. Today's parish comprises Raheny village and the wider district, and is in a Union with the Parish of Coolock. Its parish church is All Saints' Church, Raheny.

The other successor to the ancient parish is the Roman Catholic parish, whose boundaries have shifted somewhat from the historic ones.

The Celtic Church was primarily based around monastic settlements, and it is a local tradition that the area's patron saint, St. Assam, possibly a disciple of St. Patrick, established a church here.

Around the start of the second millennium, part of the area was subject to the monastery, linked to St. Nessan, on Ireland's Eye, and around 1039, territories thought to be Portrane, Baldoyle and Raheny were in the possession of the Danish King of Dublin, Sigtrygg Silkbeard, who granted farmland in the area to Christ Church Cathedral, newly established under the first Bishop of Dublin, Donat.

In the 12th century, the Irish Church moved towards a parochial model, in which Raheny was within the Diocese of Glendalough. Following restructuring under figures such as St. Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh, and the Papal Legate Cardinal Paparo in 1152, thirty-eight dioceses, each comprising a number of parishes, were approved. The Diocese of Dublin, previously a small "island" in the walled city, in the middle of the vast Diocese of Glendalough, was raised to the status of Archdiocese, with forty parishes, one of which was Raheny, in the Deanery of Fingal. The boundaries of this ancient parish are probably best reflected today in those of the Civil Parish, and of the Church of Ireland parish of the same name.

...
Wikipedia