O'Connell oversaw both the design and the commissioning of its building and furnishings, guiding the architect James F. McMullen, the builders John Sisk and Sons, and the craftsmen and artists involved in its artwork.

[13][14][15] When Honan died in 1913,[16] she left £40,000 (equivalent to £4 million in 2019) to the city of Cork, including £10,000 which her executor, a Dublin solicitor John O'Connell, was instructed to use to establish a centre of worship for Catholic students in UCC, along with other charitable and educational purposes.

[19][25][26] He was deeply interested in ecclesiastical archaeology[27] and sought to construct a chapel that was "something more than merely sufficient ... a church designed and fashioned on the same lines and on the same plan as those which their forefathers had built for their priests and missioners all over Ireland nearly a thousand years ago.

[B][32] The foundation stone, laid on 18 May 1915 by Thomas A. O'Callaghan D.D., Bishop of Cork,[33] records that the chapel was built "by the charity of Isabella Honan for the scholars and students of Munster".

It is capped by three limestone ribbed vaults,[40] supported by capitals carrying reliefs of the heads of six Munster saints: Finbarr of Cork, Coleman of Cloyne; Gobnait of Ballyvourney; Brendan of Kerry, Declán of Ardmore and Íte of Killeedy.

[38][40] The timber doors hang on wrought iron strapwork hinges designed by the architect William Scott in (according to the writer Paul Larmour) a "Celticized art nouveau" style.

[45] The original altar table was built from a slab of local limestone, chosen as a reaction against the ornately carved Italian marble then in fashion with church builders.

[29] It contained silver ornaments fitted by the Dublin gold and silversmith Edmond Johnson and William Egan and Sons of St Patrick's Street, Cork.

[46] The altar was positioned on a five-legged table, each leg of which was embedded with an Irish crucifix[47] formed from simple geometric designs, including zig-zag patterns in lozenge and saltire, continuous dots and chevrons.

[52] He in turn employed the German-Irish sculptor Imogen Stuart, aided by John and Teresa Murphy,[52] to undertake a redevelopment, including replacement of the altar, pulpit, ceremonial chairs and baptismal font.

[56] Its upper, triangular panel is set in the gable of the "entrance" and shows the Trinity of God the Father, Jesus crucified, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove; around them, two angels carry the sun, moon and other symbols of creation.

[57] The lower, rectangular panel represents the doorway and is set against a background of branches and leaves attached in silver-gilt; it shows the Lamb of God standing on a brightly coloured altar decorated with three-ringed crosses and two angels acting as servers kneeling before it.

The main entrance on the west side is dominated by a sunburst and stars surrounded by signs of the zodiac, while the imagery on the aisle depicts the head of a beast, his jaws open to form a river in which fish swim toward the chancel.

The sea creature at the east end of the nave is mentioned in the verse on the floor by the entrance dracones et omnes abyssi ("Dragons and all the depths");[66] alongside are the words cete et omnia quae moventur in aquis ("whales and all that move in the water"), which in medieval exegesis conjured images of death and reference the Biblical story of Jonah.

[67] A similar representation on a 5th-century sarcophagus in the Lateran Museum shows Jonah swimming towards the open jaws of a whale with horned ears and a long, coiled tail.

[69] O'Connell planned that Sarah Purser's studio, An Túr Gloine, at that time the leading proponent in the production of stained glass in Ireland, would provide all of the windows for the chapel.

[78] Both studios displayed their cartoons in Dublin before they were transferred to glass and installed in Cork; both shows were highly praised, and critics debated which group was superior.

[47][D] Following the Honan's opening, the art historian and collector Thomas Bodkin wrote that "nothing like Mr Clarke's windows had been seen before in Ireland" and praised their "sustained magnificence of colour ... intricate drawing [and] lavish and mysterious symbolism".

[78] His designs blend Catholic iconography with motifs from Celtic mythology[79] in a style that draws heavily from Art Nouveau, in particular the darker, fin de siècle works of Gustav Klimt, Aubrey Beardsley and Egon Schiele.

[19] According to the scholar Luke Gibbons, Clarke's break "from episcopal interference ... enabled [him] to exploit vernacular traditions of local saints ... that belonged more to legend and folklore ... and whose popular appeal lay outside the highly centralised power of post-famine ultramontane Catholicism.

[93] The borders are decorated with what O'Connell described as "symbols of his learning, his justice, his kingly dignity, of truth, of spiritual fire, of light overcoming darkness, of the serpent typical of the reptiles which he banished from Ireland".

[111] It is located on the north side of the chapel, and depicts scenes from the life of Gobnait, a healer who established a convent in Ballyvourney and became the patron saint of bees.

[112] According to the Irish novelist E. Œ. Somerville, it evokes late 19th-century decadence in its resemblance to a Beardsley–type female face, which "though horrible [is] so modern and conventionally unconventional ... [Clarke's] windows have a kind of hellish splendour.

[119] The little-known ascetic Íte of Killeedy (sometimes "The Brigid of Munster")[120] was born as either Deirdre or Dorothy in the 6th century to a local chieftain, probably in Decies-within-Drum in County Waterford, and thought to have been a descendant of Fedlimid Rechtmar and Conn of the Hundred Battles.

She is dressed in red, gold and blue robes, and shards of white glass interwoven with painted oak colours radiating from her head, representing a halo.

[50] They are minimalist in line and colour, consisting of a dominating but simply rendered and naturalistic central figure in pale hues,[78] surrounded by uncomplicated, largely empty opaque sub-panels.

[92] O'Connell described the window as a "touching and appealing figure marked apart in its frame of stone [which] forms the centre of such rich but restrained decoration as the chapel contains".

He wanted the chapel to reflect the earlier period's influence on Irish culture,[29] while maintaining a relatively simple physical outlay, comprising what Teehan describes as a "peaceful, dignified space".

[139] The original furnishings and oak pews were designed to blend into the chapel's Celtic Revival style and (according to Teehan) create "a way that represented the spirit and skill of earlier times [that] could nonetheless be fully appreciated by contemporary society.

"[138] Changes in liturgy following Vatican II meant that a number of furnishings had to be replaced,[138] a project overseen by the chapel's then dean, Gearóid Ó Súilleabháin.