St.Peter'S Cathedral, St.Peter'S Square North, Belfast

St Peter's Cathedral is a symmetrical Gothic Revival twin-spire cathedral built between 1860 and 1866 to designs by Belfast architect and priest Father Jeremiah McAuley, with the prominent twin spires added to the west front in 1886 by Mortimer Thompson. The attached Parochial House dates from 1867 and was designed by John O'Neill. The building is constructed throughout in random coursed buff ashlar Scrabo sandstone. It is the first example of a Gothic Revival church in Belfast, and has been described as 'Continental Cathedralesque' in character, the twin spires forming a prominent landmark visible from a considerable distance across the lower Falls area of Belfast.

The plan consists of a long nave with side aisles and an apse, with a chapel at the north-east corner. Side chapels were added at the centre of each side aisle in 1946 by architect Padraic Gregory. Pitched slate roofs are finished with ornamental iron ridge cresting and ventilation lanterns, with leaded hips to the apse. The side aisles have lean-to roofs, ornamented with filigree cross finials to the chancel and stone cross finials to the side chapels. The side chapel verges have a saddleback profile on kneeler stones. Cast iron rainwater goods are carried on stone eaves brackets, with square-section downpipes. Windows throughout are a variety of Gothic tracery designs set in Gothic arched openings.

The principal west elevation is dominated by a gabled central entrance containing twin Gothic doors set within a moulded Gothic arch. Above the arch is a central carved roundel depicting St Peter flanked by sleeping soldiers being visited by an angel. Above this is a string course and a Gothic arched window with a label moulding, containing a twelve-lobed rose window over seven lancets. On either side of this central composition rise three-stage towers with stepped buttresses at each corner. The first stage contains a lancet window, the second a quatrefoil window, and the third a two-light Gothic window. Each tower is completed with a blind arcade on all four elevations below a louvred belfry stage, which has twin lancets with crocketed pediments below machicolations. The towers terminate in three-stage finials at each corner, and thin battered octagonal spires rise from the towers to metal finials at their peaks.

The north elevation is eight bays long, with triple-light traceried windows to the clerestoried nave set in shallow Gothic arches, and four-light traceried windows in Gothic openings to the aisle below. Stepped buttresses divide the aisle bays. At the east end a gabled two-storey chapel is attached, and a later chapel in the middle of the elevation, built in a slightly greyer stone but otherwise matching in detail, was added by Gregory. The roof here is in natural slate with square cast iron rainwater goods, metal crestings, and lead ridges.

The east end is formed by an apse of five facets, each containing a tall triple-light Gothic window with a rose light, with stepped buttresses between each facet. A projecting chapel on the north side has a lancet window. On the south side, the sacristy and a yard wall link the cathedral to the Parochial House. The south elevation mirrors the north, with a projecting central chapel and a connection to the Parochial House.

The Parochial House is a four-storey L-shaped ashlar sandstone building of 1867 by John O'Neill, with steep slated gabled roofs with copings to the gables.

Internally, the cathedral is richly decorated. The apse has mosaic flooring and mosaic-clad walls, and the roof is of hammerbeam construction. The floor throughout the main body of the church has modern tiling, and modern pews are in place throughout. The large stained glass western window was added in the 20th century, requiring the organ — originally installed in 1883 and the work of Dublin organ builder John White, considered one of his finest and believed to be his largest — to be divided into two separate pieces. In 1946–50, Gregory added a new high altar and marble baldacchino alongside the new side chapels. In the 1960s the altar was relocated to a central position, and in the 1980s the sanctuary and crossing area were rearranged. Major renovations of both the interior and exterior were carried out between 2002 and 2005.

The cathedral has considerable historical and social significance. The site, in the area then known as the Falls, was largely undeveloped until the 1850s. The land was acquired in 1858 by Belfast baker, flour merchant and philanthropist Bernard Hughes from John Alexander of Milford, County Carlow, at a high annual rent. Hughes then gave tenure of the land to Bishop Denvir for the erection of a church at the nominal rate of a peppercorn. Griffith's Valuation of 1860 records the Catholic chapel as 'in progress' and confirms the land as 'a free gift from Mr. B. Hughes'. Hughes and his sons also erected two altars, paired with two stained glass windows in each of the side chapels, in memory of his wife and daughter. The church was built to serve a rapidly growing Catholic population: Catholics had represented less than 10% of Belfast's population in the late 18th century but had grown to one third of a population of 140,000 by 1866, with much of that community confined to the small residential area south of Divis Street known as the 'Pound Loney'. At the time of construction, only three Catholic churches existed to serve the community on the Antrim side of the River Lagan.

Construction was initially contracted to John Ross of Great George Street, with John Murphy of Great George Street completing the final work. Father McAuley oversaw construction until September 1862, when he left Belfast to complete his ecclesiastical training; the project was then seen through to completion by John O'Neill. The church was completed in 1866, though due to lack of funds the two towers were initially finished with decorative parapets rather than spires, and a harmonium occupied the space designated for the organ. The official cost, including the Sacristan's House and a payment of £760 to Mr Earp for the High Altar and the Altar of the Most Blessed Sacrament, was £17,155 1s 7½d. The Presbytery, designed by O'Neill and begun in 1867, took several years to complete.

In 1885 the distinctive twin spires were added by builder Henry Fulton of Cambridge to Mortimer Thompson's designs at an estimated cost of £5,000. A carillon of ten bells, cast by Murphy's Bell Foundry in Dublin, was added at the same time at an estimated cost of £1,500, and the church curate Father McGreevy composed a poem, 'The Bells of St Peter's', to mark the occasion. Although never formally intended as a cathedral, the church quickly became known as a 'Pro Cathedral' — from the Latin 'pro tempore', meaning temporary or provisional — as it performed most of the ceremonies associated with a cathedral. In 1986 it received official Cathedral status within the Diocese of Down and Connor.

The cathedral is set within St Peter's Close, entered off Albert Street, with the west front facing west. It is surrounded by modern ornamental metal railings and stone pillars set some five to ten metres from the building, with hard landscaping of stone flags immediately in front of the cathedral and paviors elsewhere. Two modern buildings associated with the cathedral stand on the north side. Although the twin spires are a prominent feature of the Belfast skyline, the elevations are quite closely built up against on all sides, making it difficult to obtain a general view of the building as a whole. The extent of the listing covers the cathedral itself together with its walling, railings, and gates.