Parish of Raheny (Roman Catholic)

The Parish of Raheny is the modern successor in the Roman Catholic Church to an early (1152) parish, in Raheny, a district of Dublin, Republic of Ireland reputed to be a site of Christian settlement back to at least 570 AD. Today's parish, within the Howth Deanery of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin comprises Raheny village and the central portion of the district, parts of which are also served by the parishes of Killester, Grange Park and Kilbarrack-Foxfield. The parish has a membership of around 10,000 Catholics.

Similarly centred, and covering a greater land area, is the Church of Ireland parish of the same name.

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 (at that time the parish itself lay in the Diocese of Glendalough, the proto-Diocese of Dublin being confined to the walled city).

In the 12th century, the Irish Church moved towards a parochial model, and 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 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.

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