More than 200 years before Michaelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the Augustinians arrived in Cork. Almost 800 years later, they have bid farewell to Leeside, celebrating the last Mass in St Augustine’s Church in the city centre on Sunday.Fr Paddy O’Reilly, vicar provincial of the Augustinians in Ireland, announced in March at a Vigil Mass that the order had with “great sadness” decided to close St Augustine’s on Washington Street due to falling vocations. He said only three Augustinians were left in Cork and about 70 in Ireland.More than 1,500 people squeezed into the church on Sunday to hear the Bishop of Cork and Ross, Dr Fintan Gavin, pay tribute to the Augustinians. “On behalf of the priests, deacons and people of Cork and Ross, I want to express deep gratitude to the Augustinian friars,” he said, who he noted had also served through chaplaincy in education and hospitals. “Your presence in Cork reaches back to 1272, and across so many generations and through very different times in the history of this city, the Augustinian family has been part of Cork’s spiritual and human life.” O’Reilly recalled “the bricks and mortar” history of the Augustinians in Cork from their arrival in 1272, through the founding of the sandstone Red Abbey off Douglas Street, their survival through persecution, and the move to their current limestone church built in 1942 on Washington Street.He also discussed the close relationship between the order and the people of Cork, noting the large number of Corkonians who joined the order over the centuries, serving in Ireland and as far afield as Australia, the US, Italy, Spain, Nigeria and Ecuador.“They were scholars, teachers, missionary priests and brothers working in schools, parishes, public churches, seminaries and universities, in cities, towns and villages … thus, the work and effort of Augustinians from Cork ... continues to be remembered, felt and celebrated.”O’Reilly also hinted that some agreement may be in the offing to save the current church, where Pope Leo XIV (then Fr Robert Prevost) celebrated Mass in 2007. He did not elaborate, but said that “negotiations are a delicate stage”. “We do not know clearly what the future will bring, but a future there will be, even for this church building. Negotiations are ongoing and will take time. And if all goes according to plan, there will be no bulldozers moving in here,” he said to loud applause from the congregation.“Yes, there is sorrow and anguish at the loss of the past and what we are used to, but there is the promise of the new and unknown to excite our imaginations and to whet our appetite for what is to develop and grow here in the years to come.“So let our tears be mingled with smiles and happiness as a new day dawns, and we don’t end, but rather turn the page and start a new chapter, which continues the Augustinian story differently in this place, Corcaigh.”Just before Mass ended, a collection of choirs led the congregation in renditions of Amazing Grace and the Battle Hymn of the Republic. In recognition of St Augustine’s popularity as a place of city centre worship for the people of Cork, they finished up with The Banks of My Own Lovely Lee.