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

St Mary's Catholic Church, Rathfriland

A 19th-century Catholic church in Gothic Revival style, situated in a small churchyard on the south-east side of the junction of Newry Road and Newry Street.

The building is oriented north-south with a pitched natural slate roof and overhanging painted granite skews. The north gable forms the front elevation and features an open granite two-stage bellcote with a bell and metal Celtic cross finial. The south (rear) gable is topped with a granite cross finial. The walls are wet dashed in cement and painted, with a smooth rendered base course.

The north front elevation is dominated by the main entrance at centre, set within a slightly advanced two-stage door case beneath a shallow pitched cross-topped moulded cornice. The doorway itself is Gothic headed with stop-end chamfered reveals and contains a pair of diagonally-sheeted stained timber doors with ornate cast iron strap hinges. Above the doors is a large rose window with a quatrefoil centre and radial glazing framed by stone mullions, surmounted by a smooth rendered semicircular hood that continues over flanking lancets. To either side of the entrance are tall paired lancet windows with cusped heads, the lower panels infilled and upper panels glazed with distorted quatrefoils in the spandrels (the lower portions may once have been glazed). All glazed sections are protected by security grilles. The moulded dripstone over the rose window extends across the lancets with punctuated leaded flashing. In the apex above the rose window are three narrow lancet ventilators—the central one taller—sharing a common cill.

The east elevation contains five window openings plus a small leaded quatrefoil window at the extreme right end. All windows are tall and Gothic headed with painted cills. Three windows (second, third, and fifth from the left) are divided into pairs of lancets by timber Y-tracery with coloured leaded glass and inset casement openings. The extreme left window and the second from right 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 abutted by the sanctuary, which is lower and narrower, covered by 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, also lower, abuts the south wall of the sanctuary, its pitched roof tying into the sanctuary roof hip with a catslide to the east and modern metal flue. The sacristy's west cheek aligns with the sanctuary's west cheek, while its east cheek advances to align with the main church's east elevation. The sacristy contains a Gothic headed window with paired lancets on its west wall, a small rectangular window with Y-tracery 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 left-hand windows have Y-tracery with coloured and leaded glass, while the extreme right window contains stained and painted leaded glazing.

The church sits within a graveyard extending to the 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 on the front, with matching decorative gates and piers.