Church of St. Ignatius Loyola

The Church of St. Ignatius Loyola began as a modest sanctuary built by impoverished Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine in the mid-nineteenth century. These parishioners scraped together their meager savings to construct a small wooden building on this site, which they named for an Irish bishop. The structure you see today stands as a deliberate, grand transformation of that humble origin, funded by a community that grew in prosperity and confidence as the twentieth century approached. The shift in name from its original Irish dedication to that of the Jesuit founder reflects the arrival of the Society of Jesus, who took over administration in eighteen sixty-six to support the local neighborhood.