Duneane Parish Church, Duneane Road, Toomebridge, Co. Antrim, BT41 3PN

Duneane Parish Church is a rare and well-preserved early 18th-century rural vernacular Church of Ireland building, constructed in 1729. It stands as one of only a few surviving examples of this type from the period, as noted by architectural historian Sam Hutchinson in Towers Spires and Pinnacles (2003). The church occupies a site with exceptionally deep historical roots, on the east side of Duneane Road in the townland of Lisamacloskey, and retains its original graveyard and avenue setting largely intact.

The building is a double-height, single-cell rectangular structure, oriented to face west. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with blue-black clay roll-top ridge tiles and masonry verge coping. Walls are roughcast throughout. Half-round cast-iron gutters serve as rainwater goods.

The west gable is centrally abutted by a gabled porch and surmounted by a segmental arch-headed bellcote with a round-headed aperture housing a bell, which dates from around 1827 at a recorded cost of £7. The exposed section of the west gable is blank, with a wall-mounted painted stone plaque to the left end — a fragment originally located within the floor pavement of the earlier structure on the site. The porch has a central lancet window, and its left cheek contains a pointed-arch-headed painted timber diagonally boarded double-leaf door set within a painted smooth-rendered chamfered architrave.

The north elevation is two windows wide, with a single-bay vestry abutting the right end and carrying a catslide roof. The exposed section of the north elevation has one timber Y-tracery window to the left and one geometric-tracery window to the right. The vestry elevation is blank; its left cheek has a lancet window and its right cheek has a pointed-arch-headed sheeted painted timber door.

The east gable has a central double-height geometric-tracery window. The south elevation carries a sundial to the left end, with a Y-tracery window to the left and a geometric-tracery window to the right.

Windows throughout are a mixture of two types that visibly represent the two main phases of the building's development. The lancet windows are cast-iron diamond-lattice-glazed casements with margin lights. The pointed-arch windows are either painted timber Y-tracery casements or sandstone geometric-tracery with stained glass. The Y-tracery windows are believed to date from around 1800; the geometric-tracery windows with stained glass are associated with the 1878 addition of the porch and vestry. A modern lean-to boiler shed, added around 1990, is attached to the west and is of no architectural interest.

The preserved interior and furnishings appear to date from the late 19th-century building phase of 1878.

The present nave was built in 1729 to the east of an earlier monastic chapel of ease that had belonged to the Abbey of Kells, County Meath. The 1729 church is believed to be approximately one quarter the length of the earlier chapel. That earlier structure was demolished around 1700, though fragments survive: the east gable foundation and the stone plaque now mounted on the west gable. The 1836 Ordnance Survey Memoirs describe the church as "50 feet long and 19 feet wide, and containing accommodation for 227 persons. It was erected in 1729," and note that it was originally built of mud. The church appears on all Ordnance Survey maps from 1833 onwards and also on Lendrick's Map of 1782.

The site carries traditions of great antiquity. The 1837 Ordnance Survey Memoir recalls a tradition that St Patrick (around 378 to 493 AD) built a church on or near the present site, and another tradition claims the church was founded around 500 AD by St Bridget (around 451–524). At or before around 1540, during the general Dissolution of Monasteries, the chapel was separated from monastic ownership and became a parish church. After the Siege of Derry in 1689, the landowner Major Dobbin demolished three quarters of the church because it had become too large for the remaining congregation; the east gable was then rebuilt and the side walls repaired, though these walls were recorded as decayed by 1837. The 1837 Memoir describes the east gable as constructed upon a portion of ancient wall that protrudes from the gable base, and recalls: "According to tradition, the old wall at the east gable and the two present side walls belonged to a monastic building that extended to four times the present length of the church. The entrance gate of the yard was then close to the door... still two large blocks of stone laid down like an unfinished cromlech... used as a horseblock by the monks and their successors." The rector in 1837 was the Reverend George McCartney and the curate was the Reverend William Boyes. Church records are available for baptisms from 1879, marriages from 1846, and burials from 1878.

The church is set within a graveyard enclosed by rendered boundary walls and hedges. Access from Duneane Road is via a long gravel drive lined with rendered boundary walls, with conical gate pillars and modern gates at both ends. The cylindrical gate piers date from the reign of Queen Anne (reigned 1702–1714). The graveyard to the west is formally arranged, with burials on a grid and a central avenue flanked by yew trees. It contains numerous fine 18th-century gravestones, several sculpted table tombs, chest tombs and slab tombs, and many wrought-iron and cast-iron railings enclosing family plots. Graves were placed over the foundations of the ancient buildings on the site. The oldest visible tomb is a chest tomb dedicated to the Dobbin family, dated 1716, flanked by further heraldic-crested Dobbin family chest tombs and gravestones. The oldest visible gravestone to the northeast commemorates Art McCleaver (around 1697–1759), though numerous other gravestones appear to be earlier but are now illegible. One gravestone inscription speaks to connections beyond the rural setting: "To the memory of John Bones, who died on the 1st of February 1799, aged 66 years, as a tribute of filial gratitude to one of the best of parents, this stone is erected by an affectionate son, who after a long absence from his native country visits the grave of his father with feelings of undiminished regret 1st September 1822, John Bones 1st February 1799."

The listing covers the church, pillars and gates. The building is also a scheduled monument.