A spate of Catholic classical church building took place between the opening of the Pro-Cathedral (1825) and the Famine (1847). All the churches have artistic merit and express the competitive Catholic self-confidence of the time.

The first three are by different architects: St Francis Xavier, Gardiner St (John B Keane: 1829-32); St Nicholas of Myra, Francis St (John Leeson: 1829-34); St Andrew's, Westland Row (John Bolger: 1832-37).

By 1864, growing numbers made a larger building necessary. The congregation acquired a site on what was then Rutland Square, and took the 'Abbey' name with them. A prospering grocer and wine merchant, Alexander Findlater (1797-1873), whose shops were prominent in O'Connell Street and Rathmines into the 1970s, paid for the Gothic revival church building. Dubliners called it "Findlater's Church". A large memorial window containing texts from the Beatitudes, on an ornamental background, was erected to him by the grateful congregation. His portrait hangs in the small tower.

The site of the present church began as a Franciscan friary in 1235, hence the name Francis Street. Suppressed by Henry VIII, it re-emerged in penal times as Dublin's metropolitan Catholic Church. The archbishops often lived here. Up until the late 19th century it formed one parish with the Isle of Man.