The boundaries of the parish of St. James were defined by St. Laurence O'Toole and extended right up to the city gate at Corn Market.

[6] The parish of St. Catherine appears to have been the only viable one in the area at that time - Roman Catholics eventually got the use of a chapel in Dirty Lane (now Bridgefoot Street) towards the end of the 17th century.

It is owned by the Dublin city council, and community efforts are underway to revive the tradition of annual cleaning and decoration.

[7] After they were hanged, drawn and quartered upon George's Hill outside the walls of Dublin in 1612, Bishop Concobhar Ó Duibheannaigh and Fr.

Patrick O'Loughran of the illegal Catholic Church in Ireland were secretly buried in St. James Churchyard, where their graves became a site of Christian pilgrimage.

Sir Mark Rainsford, Mayor of Dublin and owner of the brewery which was sold to Arthur Guinness, was buried in St James in 1709.

[2] In his 1610 Protestant critique "A New Description of Ireland", Barnaby Rich records an outline of the holy well tradition which predates the current fountain and obelisk:[10] The multitude of rascall people that vseth to frequent this faire, are first accustomed to perform certaine ceremonies at S. Iames his well, in casting the water, backward and forward, on the right side and on the left, and ouer their heads; then drinking a draught of the water, they go into the Faire...Although the present church only dates to the 18th century, there are records of burials as early as 1495 and it is believed that the cemetery may have been in use as early as the 13th century.

[7] In 1821, G. N. Wright wrote of a custom to "deck the graves with garlands and ornaments, made of white paper, disposed into very extraordinary forms".