It was founded by John Henry Newman for the newly founded Catholic University of Ireland, and designed by John Hungerford Pollen (senior) in a Byzantine Revival style, due to Newman's dislike of Gothic architecture.

[4] On 4 May (Saint Monica's Day), Newman preached in his sermon the essential place of the church in his plans for the university: "I wish in the same spots and the same individuals to be at once oracles of philosophy and shrines of devotion.

[citation needed] During the 1916 Easter Rising British soldiers established a machine-gun post on the roof of the church.

[8] Future Taoiseach John A. Costello married Ida Mary O'Malley in the church in 1919.

The semi-dome above the sanctuary was inspired by the apse of the Basilica of San Clemente al Laterano, Rome.