Origins
Harold's Cross is rich in association and dates from the tenth century AD. Legend has it a village sprung up on the site of a battlefield - the village of Harold's Cross.

Personalities & Landmarks
Harold Park was the original village green, while the bridge over the canal, built in 1790, was first named Clanbrassil Bridge. In 1935-6 it was rebuilt and called Robert Emmet Bridge after the patriot who was captured in Harold's Cross. After a failed uprising in Dublin in 1802, Emmet chose to remain in hiding in the Wicklow mountains so he could be close to his "bright love" who lived in Harold's Cross. Emmet in fact spent a month of hiding in Harold's Cross, before finally being discovered and executed in public.

Robert Emmet House, so called because Robert Emmet stayed there in Chicken Lane, later renamed Mount Drummond Avenue, was knocked down and is now the site of apartments for elderly people.

Mother Mary Aikenhead came to Harold's Cross and founded one of Dublin's best known landmark, namely the Hospice, while St Clare's Convent was founded across the road in 1803. Mount Jerome Cemetery was originally the residence of the Shaws of Bushy Park. Today Thomas Davis (Poet) Thomas Drummond (Under-Secretary), George Russell (Author), William Wilde (Historian and Father of Oscar Wilde), and Lord Longford of the Gate Theatre are all buried there.

Mount Argus was acquired by the Passionist community in 1856 and Fr. Paul Mary Pakenham (a nephew of the Duke of Wellington) was the first rector. The monastery was built in 1860. A new entrance from the Kimmage Road was donated by the Dublin Metropolitan Police in 1908/9 and the Garda Siochana did likewise when the new car park was put in by supplying a double gate at the entrance.

Fr. Charles lived and died in Mount Argus. In 1938 his body was raised as part of the apostolic process for beatification and his body was transferred from the cemetery to the church in 1949. Mount Argus became a parish in 1974.