St Anne's Church at Shandon, with its famous bells, is Cork city's most famous landmark but mystery surrounds when the historic church was built and officially opened.
Today, the Church of Ireland Bishop of Cork, the Right Reverend Dr Paul Colton, launched a public appeal to help track down and solve the 300-year-old mystery.
The lack of exact dates was only discovered when preparations got under way to mark the tercentenary of the historic church, planned for later this year.
Vital parish records were found to have been lost in the fire at the Public Record Office in Dublin in June 1922.
"We have looked at all sorts of records, spoken with parishioners, some local people, and spoken to some archivists and historians. We have checked dates on parish silver, on plaques and on the font in the church. There appears to be no foundation stone and no memorial stone commemorating the consecration.
"We would like to know these dates and that is what we mean by the 'Shandon Mystery'," said Bishop Colton at today's launch.
He said he is appealing to Irish people in general, but to Cork people in particular, wherever they are in the world, to help the parish try to discover the exact dates of the building and the date of the opening of the church.
Bishop Colton said that as a Church of Ireland bishop and as a local Church of Ireland community, they are very conscious that St Anne's, Shandon, to the people of Cork and for Irish people, is much more than a parish church.
"It is a potent, evocative and emotive symbol of Cork around which the people of Cork rally, unite and identify.
"It just may be that someone has an original source in an archive that we do not know about, or information from a secondary source in a book or diary for example, that we are not aware of.
"We are going to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Shandon starting later this year, regardless, but it would also, as part of that, be great to solve our 'Shandon Mystery', Bishop Colton told the gathering after Sunday morning service.
St Anne's has been described as "the most important ecclesiastical structure of any period, within the city of Cork and its immediate environs. It is also one of the most important early 18th century churches in Ireland and one of a small number which still retain their original 18th century bells".
The site where it stands has been a site of worship since before medieval times. It is believed that the clock tower, visible from across the city, with its red sandstone and white limestone, gave rise to the sporting colours of Cork.
Its bells first rang out in 1752, and its clock was erected by Cork Corporation in 1847 which was the first four-faced clock until the construction of Big Ben in London.
The parish and diocese are in the process of developing a full tercentenary programme in partnership with the City of Cork, the local community, history groups, as well as the Church of Ireland nationally.
