1845 was the year of the great potato famine in Ireland. A million died and another million came to the United States to live. Ten families chose the Loveland area so they could work on the local farms and the two railroads that crossed the city. Since they were all Catholic, and found the weekly trip to Saint Andrew parish in Milford to be a hardship, they petitioned Archbishop Purcell for a local parish.

The first Mass in Loveland was held in the home of the Norton family, an older white house still located on Broadway Avenue. In 1859 Saint Columban parish was officially founded when the ten families raised sufficient monies to purchase an old school house at the location of the Valley View apartments on Broadway.

In 1891 a new church building was built on the same site to replace the converted old school house that was now too small for the Catholic community. In 1926 the first Saint Columban School was added and placed in the care of the Sisters of Notre Dame from Covington, KY, to teach the 70 students in grades one through eight.

In March of 1956, in order to serve the needs of a growing community, a 26 acre farm was purchased on Oakland Road. Volunteers converted the old farmhouse into a rectory and the barn into a meeting hall. Two years later the new school was opened with the building also serving as a temporary church, gym, and cafeteria. Additions were soon made to the building and the church was moved to a more appropriate space that was used until, its later conversion into more classrooms.

On January 23, 1983, Archbishop Pilarczyk dedicated the next Saint Columban Church, large enough to seat approximately 650 people depending on the different ways that the worship space could be arranged. With conversion of the old church space to classrooms, the school now had two classrooms for each of the grades one through eight.

Since 1990, growth in the greater Loveland area has been phenomenal.  On August 25, 2002 a new church was dedicated by archbishop Pilarczyk to meet the increasing needs of this growing parish.  Our membership is nearing 1600 households.  Along with the 1,000 seat worship space there is a Day Chapel for daily mass, a Eucharistic Reservation Chapel, family room, nursery and a currently unfinished undercroft.