Our Lady of Lourdes, Roman Catholic Church, Moneyglass Road, ****see comments****

Our Lady of Lourdes is a tall Gothic Revival Roman Catholic church built between 1919 and 1925 on an elevated site at the crossroads of Moneyglass Road and Ballymatoskerty Road. The church was designed by the Belfast architect J.J. McDonnell, whose practice was rooted in late-nineteenth-century Victorian principles. The foundation stone was laid in 1919, and the building was completed in 1925. McDonnell is best known for his masterpiece, the Roman Catholic Church of the Most Holy Redeemer at Clonard Gardens, Belfast, built between 1908 and 1911.

The church is aligned east-west and arranged on a cruciform plan with M-profile transepts, chapels positioned to the east of the transepts, and a four-stage tower with a steeple attached by a two-storey link block to the north. The walling is constructed of squared and snecked basalt with granite dressings over a projecting plinth. The roof is pitched natural slate with blue and black clay crested ridge tiles.

Windows throughout are gothic lancets with leaded stained glass set within splayed granite surrounds and label-ended hood moulds. The west gable is dominated by a double-height gothic-arched recess containing a decorated tracery window above a pair of gothic entrance openings, all framed by colonnettes. A central statue of the Virgin Mary is supported on a cluster of colonnettes with a cusped canopy above. A narrow lancet is positioned at the gable apex. Limestone stringcourses run horizontally across the elevation.

The north elevation displays four windows in width with buttresses positioned between each. The tower rises at the right end, featuring four stages with clasping buttresses that rise to the third stage, topped by a broached limestone spire with lucarnes. The link block is detailed in the same manner as the main church but features square-headed window openings to its ground floor. The triple-height north transept extends from the left end, featuring an M-profile roof with paired lancet and cinquefoil openings and stone cross finials to its apex.

A double-height chapel abuts the left cheek of the transept, with a central rose window to its gable and two windows to each cheek. The east gable is abutted by a double-height chancel featuring two paired windows to the centre surmounted by a rose window, with two windows to each cheek. The south elevation mirrors the north, displaying five windows in width including the south transept and chapel, but without the tower and linking block.

The right gable of the transept is abutted by a double-height sacristy with a single-storey linking block, both detailed in the manner of the main church. The sacristy features a central limestone chimneystack to its ridge and two square-headed leaded stained glass windows, while its gables each have two windows. The linking block is accessed by a gothic sheeted timber door to the west.

The stained glass windows were supplied by Mayer & Co. of Munich, contemporary with the church's completion. The c.1925 organ by Evans and Barr was one of seven in Ulster to receive a Historic Organ Certificate from the British Institute of Organists.

The church is set on an elevated site surrounded by a lawned churchyard. To the south are polished granite Celtic cross grave markers. A freestanding modern rock-faced brick and concrete grotto dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes is excavated into the north site between the church and Moneyglass Road. The boundary of the site is defined by a squared and snecked wall with a splayed granite plinth, saddleback coping, and square pillars with cusped recesses and pyramidal caps. A paved path leads from the church to the road, with a separate concrete drive serving the detached parochial house and outbuildings to the south.

The churchyard is accessed through a pair of square flat-headed block-marked rendered gate pillars containing wrought-iron gates with an iron archway above. Within the graveyard stand the ruins of the former church, built in 1826, which is also listed. The graveyard contains various stone and marble headstones and burial plots. Records from the earlier church document baptisms from 1834 to 1861 and marriages from 1835 to 1861. The oldest grave found is that of Nicholas Scullion, who died in 1836. The graveyard is bounded to the road by random rubble stone walling.

The church was restored in 1992 by architects J.J. Brennan & Co., during which the interior was reordered but retained its original details and character. Rainwater goods are of half-round cast iron, and original doors are sheeted and wood-grained timber.