Our Lady of Limerick first came to that city in 1640 as a gift from Patrick Sarsfield and his wife Eleanor. ( Not to be confused with Patrick Sarsfield of the treaty of Limerick) Patrick Sarsfield had purchased the statue on the continent perhaps Austria. He gifted the statue in reparation for the martyrdom of Sir John Burke of Brittas, Captain of Clanwilliam. It was Patrick's uncle, Judge Dominic Sarsfield, who had sentence Sir John to death.
Patrick himself had lost his estate in the Act of Settlement in 1653.
A church was built to replace an earlier church destoyed by anti Catholic forces. Soon however it was necessary to hide the statue from further destruction, it was buried in a coffin in the surrounding cemetery with her devotees keeping watch. Then when the Dominicans built a chapel in Fish Lane, the statue was brought there. When the Dominicans opened St Saviour Church in 1816 she was moved to there.