St Patrick's RC Church, Causeway Street, Portrush, Co Antrim, BT56 8JE

St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church is a symmetrical, gabled Gothic Revival church built in blackstone, constructed between 1845 and 1851, with additions dating from 1936 to 1937. It stands on the east side of Causeway Street in Portrush town centre, adjacent to East Strand Beach. The building is a good example of mid-Victorian Roman Catholic Gothic Revival architecture, retaining its original character largely intact, and makes an important contribution to the streetscape of Portrush as well as holding significant social importance for the local community.

The church follows a cruciform plan, comprising a rectangular nave with double transepts to the northwest and southeast, an apse to the northeast, and a sacristy with entrance porch to the southeast. The roof is finished in natural slate with leaded ridges, raised stone verges, and kneeler stones to the gables. A cross finial tops the northeast gable, and a bell-cote — now without its bell, which was removed after the first survey in 1973 — rises from the southwest. There is an ashlar chimneystack to the sacristy. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods run along cavetto-moulded eaves, though some replacement uPVC rainwater goods are also present.

The walls are built of rock-faced squared blackstone laid in courses on a chamfered stone plinth, with diagonal buttresses featuring stone offsets. A smooth rendered and painted string course runs at eaves level. Windows throughout are bipartite leaded and stained glass lancets set in painted ashlar surrounds with chamfered sills and stone voussoirs.

The southwest-facing principal elevation is the main public face of the building. The central entrance is flanked on each side by a window composed of two cusped lancets arranged vertically and divided by a bipartite blind tracery central panel, each surmounted by a hood mould. Above the entrance is a carved stone figure of St Patrick on a plinth set within a Gothic niche with hood mould, which breaks the string course at eaves level — this niche replaced an earlier tablet inscribed "Erected by subscriptions AD MDCCCXLV." A relieving arch sits over the entrance, which comprises a smooth rendered and painted doorcase surmounted by a label mould. The doorway has a Tudor arch head with a transom light over it and carved trefoil detailing to the spandrels; the door itself is a replacement double-leaf two-panelled timber door. It is reached by a single stone step. Historic photographs confirm that the tracery of the two flanking lancet windows was altered after the original construction to accommodate a gallery added internally.

The northwest elevation is four windows wide, evenly spaced. To the left are the double transepts, each lit by a paired bipartite lancet. At the far left, a flat-roofed entrance porch abuts the elevation, featuring a square-headed window to the left cheek and a replacement four-panelled timber door with a leaded glass transom set in a pointed-headed surround.

The northeast rear elevation features the apse at the centre of the gable, with pointed-headed leaded and stained glass lancets; all windows on this elevation are protected by grilles. To the left of the apse, the flat-roofed extension to the sacristy abuts the elevation.

The southeast elevation mirrors the northwest in its detailing. At the far right, the projecting single-storey sacristy has a projecting porch on its southwest face, with a replacement four-panelled timber door surmounted by a leaded glass lancet in a pointed-headed surround, and a lancet to the right cheek. The sacristy has two square-headed windows to its southeast face and a chimneystack at the right east corner; it has been extended to the northeast.

The large extension incorporating the chancel and transepts was added to the rear between 1936 and 1937 to designs by Padraic Bernard Gregory. The foundation stone was laid in 1936 and the church was reopened in September 1937; the contractor was Hugh Taggart.

The history of the church is well documented. It was erected from 1845 under Father Kearney, though construction proceeded gradually as funds became available — a pattern common to Catholic church building in this period. The church was formally dedicated to St Patrick by Dr Denvir on 17th August 1851, at a ceremony at which the Reverend Henry Marshall of Oxford spoke and a collection of over £55 was raised. The church appeared on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1853, occupying a previously vacant site on the outskirts of Portrush. It was listed in Griffith's Valuation of 1856 to 1864 at a valuation of £22, with the ground leased from the Earl of Antrim at a nominal rent. Valuation notes from the early 1930s record that the church at that time accommodated 300 people. A school was added to the site in 1855 and a parochial house in 1859, both first appearing on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1906; a small lodge was also present on the site by that date. A teacher's residence was subsequently built by Father McKenna using a loan from the Board of Works. The windows in the parochial house were replaced in 1984.

The site is bounded by a blackstone rubble wall with coping stones. The southwest entrance has polygonal ashlar piers with pointed caps supporting original cast-iron gates. A pedestrian entrance has square brick piers with stone coping supporting a timber-sheeted latch gate. The grounds to the school at the north are accessed through blackstone piers with pointed caps also supporting cast-iron gates.

Sharing the site are several associated buildings. The one-and-a-half-storey parochial house and primary school both lie to the north, and a one-and-a-half-storey gate lodge sits to the southeast. All are gabled, built in blackstone, and have slated roofs. The parochial house is detailed in a similar manner to the church, with rendered chimneystacks, raised stone verges, replacement square-headed timber casement windows in pointed-headed painted surrounds, and a replacement entrance door reached by four stone steps. The school comprises a double-height gabled hall with rendered chimneystacks to the gables and a four-pane cusped lancet window to the southwest. To the east of the school is a detached mid-20th-century double-height rendered classroom building. To the south, set at 180 degrees, is a two-storey gabled former dwelling, partially of blackstone rubble and partially smooth rendered, with three timber casement windows to the first floor at the northeast and two modern timber doors to the southeast gable, and a rendered chimneystack to the right of centre at the ridgeline. The grounds to the south are lawned and contain a burial plot with three 20th-century gravestones; the area to the east is a tarmacadamed playground. The neighbouring site to the south contains an unfinished four-storey concrete block building.

The listing covers the church together with the boundary wall, gate piers, and gates.