St Mary's RC Church, Newry Street, Rathfriland, Newry, Co Down, BT34 5PY

St Mary's Roman Catholic Church at Newry Street, Rathfriland, is a 19th-century church in the Gothic Revival style that has undergone substantial alteration and remodelling, particularly in the late 19th century. The building retains no original features from its initial construction. It has been further modified to meet modern liturgical requirements. One window by Clarke Studios, dating to 1947, is noteworthy.

The church was built by public subscription in 1832 at a cost of £250, with a capacity of 400 people. The site was granted to the Bishop of Dromore by General Meade under a 500-year rent-free lease on 10 November 1829. Ordnance Survey maps show that the chancel and porch were added in the mid-19th century, first appearing on the 1860 town map.

The church is situated in a small churchyard on the south-east side of the junction of Newry Road and Newry Street. It is oriented north to south with a pitched natural slate roof and overhanging painted granite skews. An open two-stage granite bellcote sits on the north front gable, topped with a bell and metal Celtic cross finial; the south rear gable has a granite cross finial. The walls are wet dashed in cement and painted, with a smooth rendered basecourse.

The north gable forms the front elevation, with the main entrance at its centre set within a two-stage door case slightly advanced under a shallow pitched cross-topped moulded cornice. The doorway is Gothic headed with stop-end chamfered reveals and contains a pair of diagonally-sheeted stained timber doors with ornate cast iron strap hinges. A large rose window with quatrefoil centre and radial glazing, framed by stone mullions, sits above the doorway. Its smooth rendered architrave features a semicircular hood that extends over flanking lancets. Tall windows flank the entrance on either side, each comprising pairs of horizontally divided lancets with cusped heads. The bottom panels are infilled while the top panels are glazed with distorted quatrefoil spandrels (the lower portions may have once been glazed). All glazed sections are protected by security grilles. A moulded dripstone over the rose window continues with punctuated leaded flashing across the two flanking lancets. In the apex above the rose window are three narrow lancet ventilators with a common cill, the central one being taller.

The east elevation has five window openings and a small leaded quatrefoil window at its far right end. All windows are tall and Gothic headed with painted cills. Three of the openings (second, third, and fifth from the left) are divided by timber Y-tracery into pairs of lancets with coloured leaded glass, each lancet having a casement opening set inset. The windows at the far left and second from right (excluding the quatrefoil) have lost their tracery and now contain five horizontally divided panes of painted and stained glass. The rear south gable of the main church is blank and is abutted by the sanctuary, which is lower and narrower under a hipped natural slate roof with plastic half-round rainwater goods. The sanctuary's east and west cheeks each have a leaded lancet window. A sacristy abuts the south wall of the sanctuary, with its pitched roof tying into the hip of the sanctuary roof and catsliding to the east with a modern metal flue. The sacristy's west cheek is flush with the sanctuary's west cheek, while its east cheek extends to align with the east elevation of the main church. It has a Gothic headed window with a pair of lancets on its west wall, a small rectangular window with Y-tracery divisions on its south wall, and a modern window with an eight-panelled stained timber door on its east wall.

The west elevation of the main church mirrors the east wall but without the quatrefoil window. The four windows at the left end feature Y-tracery with coloured and leaded glass, while the window at the far right end has stained and painted leaded glazing.

The church is set within a graveyard extending to its south and west sides. It is enclosed by a modern cement-dashed wall on the sides and a dwarf wall supporting modern wrought iron railings to the front, with matching decorative gates and piers.