Welcome to Gateway Methodist Church

Kenmare Methodist Church began as a mission station in the town some years after the exciting tours of Revs Averell and John Hamilton. Glowing reports of its success prompted the confidence to erect a Methodist chapel in 1838. In 1851 the frequency of preaching appointments was increased and some necessary repairs carried out to the building. An 1851 map of Kenmare shows the Methodist Chapel as a small rectangular building on the north side of the road, then called the Sound Road, now called Bell Height. The chapel was on the town side of the site where St. Patrick’s Church of Ireland now stands. The decision of Rev. John Godfrey Day of the Established Church to build a new church close by the Methodist chapel may have played a major role in the decline of Methodism in Kenmare. Later the congregation decreased and the Methodist chapel was closed in 1900. No trace of the Methodist chapel remains today.

In the early 2000s several people from the Kenmare area regularly travelled to Killarney to be part of the Methodist congregation there. It was decided to hold a monthly Methodist service in Kenmare, so, an evening service was started on the third Sunday of each month in conjunction with Bantry Christian Fellowship. Some Killarney leaders also began holding evening Bible classes on the second and fourth Tuesdays each month at the Rectory Resource Centre.