Building Up the Church in Ireland

In 1840 John Taylor of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and two Irish converts, James McGuffie and William Black, attempted to preach the gospel to the Irish. By 1850, however, the effects of the Great Famine and the ongoing religious conflicts in Ireland had prevented missionaries from preaching in southern Ireland, and many early converts had immigrated to England, Scotland, Wales, or the United States.

Edward Sutherland, a Dublin native who had joined the Church while living in London, was called in 1850 to return to Dublin to spread the gospel. When Sutherland attempted to hold public meetings, however, he was interrupted by the taunts of divinity students from Trinity College. Unable to hold large meetings, Sutherland began preaching privately to family members. Eventually, a branch was organized, comprising six converts, including Sutherland’s parents and Sutherland himself.

Political unrest, religious conflicts, and the threat of being ostracized for joining the Church limited missionary success in Ireland. Those who did join the Church frequently emigrated soon after their baptisms. As a result, membership in Ireland remained low until after the turn of the 20th century, when several Latter-day Saint families had emigrated from Germany to Dublin. In Dublin, German Saints opened shops and worshipped together on Sundays in rented spaces. In 1907 Heinrich Mogerly and his wife, Mary, relocated their family from Germany to Dublin in search of a climate that would be better for Mary’s health. Through his employment at Alhousen’s, a butcher shop owned by a Latter-day Saint family, Heinrich learned about the Church, and eventually he and his wife were baptized. As the Mogerly children grew up, they spent their school days with their Catholic friends and their Sundays with the German Saints.

While playing tennis one day, Maureen Mogerly, Heinrich and Mary’s only daughter, became acquainted with a young man named Robert Lynn, a Scotch-Irish Catholic. As they became friends, they often debated religious questions, but neither could persuade the other. At the start of World War II, Robert enlisted in the army, and Maureen was called on a mission to England. From the mission home in London, she sent him a serviceman’s copy of the Book of Mormon. When they both returned to Dublin after the war, Robert began attending Church meetings with Maureen. Shortly after Robert was baptized, he and Maureen were married.

The Mogerly and Lynn families at a family wedding in Dublin, March 2, 1940.

Within a year, Robert was called first into the branch presidency and then as branch president of the Dublin Branch, a calling he held for the next 23 years. Many converts emigrated for both economic and religious reasons, keeping membership numbers low. Even Robert and Maureen worried that their children would not be able to marry in the Church and contemplated moving to Utah. “We knelt down and prayed,” Robert said, “and the answer came to me that I should stay and build up the Church here, that our children would be looked after.” Within a few years, they had purchased a large business, had bought a car, and were living comfortably in their own home.

From small branch meetings in rented spaces, the Church grew. By the 1980s, 1,200 Saints were living in Ireland. In March 1995 the first stake in Ireland was organized in Dublin. “This has to be one of the very best days in my entire life,” Robert said on the day the stake was created. “I have waited for nearly half a century for this great blessing.”