Immaculata Special School, Shore Road, Whiteabbey, Co.Antrim

The Immaculata Special School was a detached, multi-bay, three-storey redbrick building constructed c.1890 in a Gothic style. The building, located on Shore Road, Whiteabbey, Co.Antrim, has since been demolished. The original structure was a large institutional building with slated gabled roofs, terracotta ridge tiles, blue brick string courses and voussoirs to the pointed arch arcading of the central five bays. A tower rose over the main entrance; at third floor level it featured a statue in a canopied niche, and the fourth floor had an open arcaded octagonal belfry topped with battlements. The battlements on the parapet of the two-storey bay alongside this were reminiscent of the work of E & J Byrne and John O’Shea at St Malachy’s College, Falls Road, Belfast, completed in 1900. The interior was considered of no interest, although a chapel alongside had been completely modernised by Felix Forte and Ray Carroll, featuring stained glass by Mayer of Munich which was not favourably regarded. The building was originally built in 1890 as an industrial school attached to St Brigid's Home for the Blind, Abbeyville. An oratory was opened in 1936. According to a souvenir from St Paul's Convent of Mercy Centenary in 1954, the building was designed by Messrs E & J Byrne, architects, and mentioned in the Belfast Newsletter of January 1, 1897 concerning "New Industrial Schools (Sacred Heart Orphanage) Abbeyville, Whiteabbey.” No plans or papers relating to the building were available. As the building was surveyed in the First Survey but not listed at that time, only a partial record was taken, as it was not deemed worthy of a full Second Survey.