Following the arrival of the Dominicans in Ireland in 1224, they established the Friary of the Most Holy Saviour, on the North banks of the river Liffey, where the Four Courts is located today, south of which was the halls of study on what is ushers island, a stone bridge was built by the order, to connect the convent with the college.

[11] St. Saviour's Convent/Priory was built in 1885 by the architect John Loftus Robinson, supposedly with funds intended to add a spire to the church, the house in which the writer and MP Richard Brinsley Sheridan was born was among the houses on Dorset Street, demolished to make way for the construction.

St. Catherine's Chapel, in the priory, on Dorset Street, in recent years has been developed for conferences and is used by the Studium.

In 2000, the Irish Dominicans moved their House of Studies (Studium), which had been since its establishment in 1855 at St. Mary's Priory[17] in Tallaght, to St.

[19] Since 1971, the Irish Dominican Studium is affiliated to the Dominican Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum University)[20] in Rome, which grants to successful students (the Bachelor of Sacred Theology (STB) degree).

Since the student brothers take the STB degree over four years rather than the prescribed three, those who take a full BA programme are ordained early and often complete the fourth year of theology in Rome, living at the Irish Dominican convent of Saints Xystus and Clement which owns the world-famous basilica San Clemente, Rome.