St Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Lisnagade Road, Loughbrickland, Co Down, BT32 3QN

St Mary's Roman Catholic Church is a rendered, double-height gabled building constructed around 1800 on the site of an earlier church, with significant alterations carried out in 1899 and 1956. It stands to the south side of Lisnagade Road, northwest of Loughbrickland, on a slightly elevated site surrounded on all sides by farmland. Although it originated at an early date, the building is largely Victorian in character, with its late 19th-century fabric largely intact. Changes to the interior have, however, resulted in the loss of historic fabric and character, and the building is not considered to be of special architectural or historical interest.

EXTERIOR

The church has a rectangular plan with a projecting gabled porch to the front and a single-storey flat-roofed extension to the rear housing the vestry and baptistery. The roof is covered in natural slate with blue-black angled ridge tiles, raised stone verges with kneelers, and cross finials to the gables. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are carried on projecting eaves. The walls are painted render over a smooth rendered plinth. Windows are mainly round-arched, leaded and stained glass with timber Y-tracery and projecting sills, unless noted otherwise.

The principal elevation faces northeast. A projecting gabled porch sits to the right of centre; to its left are four windows and to its right one window. The porch has a Y-tracery window to the gable and opens to the northwest through a timber-sheeted double-leaf door reached by two stone steps. A marble plaque on the porch gable reads "SAINT MARY'S CHURCH Lisnagade c.1790 A.D."

The southeast elevation has two tall round-arched leaded and stained glass timber-casement windows. The southwest (rear) elevation has a small single-storey flat-roofed extension to the left of centre, flanked by one Y-tracery window to the left and two Y-tracery windows to the right. At the far right, abutting this, is a single-storey flat-roofed extension with a group of four round-arched leaded and stained glass timber-casement windows, and one further window to the extreme right. The left cheek of this extension has a timber-sheeted entrance door with a leaded and stained glass round-arched overlight to the left, and two round-arched leaded and stained glass timber-casement windows to the right. The right cheek has two round-arched leaded and stained glass timber-casement windows to the right, a timber door to the left, and louvred vents. The northwest elevation has a leaded and stained glass rose window positioned above a square-headed timber-sheeted double-leaf entrance door.

SETTING

The church is set back from the road on a slightly elevated site, bounded by a modern timber fence and mature hedgerow. The northeast entrance has a low rendered wall with coping stones topped by metal railings and a decorative cast-iron gate on square metal piers with cross finials. A tarmacadamed pathway leads to the entrance porch. The cemetery lies to both sides, with grave markers dating from the early 19th century. A small development of three detached two-storey houses lies to the northwest.

HISTORY

The church was built shortly before 1800 by the Reverend John Malone, replacing an earlier building of around 1750 that had been burned during political unrest in 1790. Agrarian tensions and sectarian conflict were widespread in the 1780s, and there were several clashes at Lisnagade, culminating in the burning of the mass house in 1790, after which Father Malone built the present church. The site has unusually early origins for a Catholic place of worship: the Report on the State of Property of 1731 lists a priest and schoolhouse under the Dromore Diocese, and by 1769 Church of Ireland vestry minutes record the existence of a mass house on or near the site of the present Lisnagade chapel. Few Catholic churches existed during the period of the penal laws, making this an early example.

The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834 shows the building as a simple rectangular structure captioned "R C Chapel." The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of the same period describe it as "a stone building, roughcast and whitewashed... 86 and a half feet in length and 24 and a half feet in breadth," accommodating 800 persons with a general attendance of 800, and built by public subscription at an unknown cost. The Townland Valuation records the chapel as valued at £5 11 shillings and exempted from levy, noting it to be "in good order and sound repair." By the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1860, an entrance porch had been added to the front façade. Griffith's Valuation initially lists the church at £6, later revised upward to £12 10 shillings with 10 shillings for the graveyard, possibly reflecting improvements including the porch addition. By the First General Revaluation of 1933–4, the chapel was revalued at £25, with dimensions recorded for the church, the single-storey porch, and a single-storey outbuilding. The adjoining cemetery, which was extended around 1830, is likely partly contemporary with the former church.

Renovations were carried out in 1899 during the pastorate of the Reverend Murtagh McPolin. The Irish Builder of 1916 reports further renovation to designs by John Valentine Brennan, an architect and engineer principally commissioned for ecclesiastical work on Roman Catholic churches and parochial houses. Heating was installed by Father Edward McAteer in 1937. Between 1956 and 1959, the church was re-roofed and re-floored, mosaic tiling and new sanctuary steps were laid, the congregational seating was replaced, and a new sacristy wing was built. The Ordnance Survey map from the 1960s and 1970s records this modern extension to the rear.

Interior re-ordering took place in 1973, described as quite radical for its time: the reredos was removed, the choir was repositioned in the sanctuary area, the tabernacle was relocated to the main altar, and a new pipe organ costing £2,850, made by Reiger of Austria, was installed. Two stained glass windows were fitted at the rear of the sanctuary, the central heating system was replaced, and both the interior and exterior were redecorated.

Further sanctuary renovations were undertaken in 1992–3 under the supervision of architects McLean and Forte of Belfast. A new altar of Mourne granite replaced the older wooden structure, and a new granite tabernacle surround and plinth were constructed. The tabernacle was repositioned at the centre of the sanctuary and a new granite ambo installed beside the altar. The church was subsequently redecorated and relighted.