St Patrick’s R.C. Church, Glenshane Road, Dungiven, Co Londonderry, BT47 4RT

St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church is a late 19th-century aisled nave church in a Frenchified neo-Gothic style, designed by John O'Neill — described by architectural historian A. Rowan as Ulster's Pugin. It stands at the south-eastern edge of Dungiven town on the Glenshane Road (also known as Chapel Road), in a pleasantly landscaped setting not far from the former church of 1819 and the medieval Augustinian priory. The church was built between 1883 and 1884, with later alterations and additions. It is faced in rubble sandstone with ashlar sandstone dressings, and has natural slate roofs.

EXTERIOR

The plan comprises an aisled nave with a round apsidal east end, a clerestorey, lean-to aisles, and a gabled west front. Roofs are finished in Welsh slates, with the nave roof neatly curved at the apsidal end and carrying a crested ridge. The decorative finial over the apex of the apse roof is missing. Rainwater goods are in cast iron.

The west front is defined by shouldered buttresses to either side of the high nave gable. Three separate pointed entrance doors form the principal entrance, each with moulded label moulding and stop. Above the doors, a straight stringcourse runs between the buttresses at sill level, beneath two tall two-light lancets with tracery. In the gable apex, centrally positioned, is a large sexfoil. Flanking the nave gable, the aisle gables each have a single large two-light pointed lancet with quatrefoil and label moulding. The corners are defined by shouldered buttresses, and there are stone bargeboards with pronounced gabled kneelers.

The north façade is seven bays long. The two end bays are narrower than the others, and the semicircular apse of the nave projects beyond the east end. Each bay is defined by shouldered buttresses, of which three are of greater depth. In the second bay from the west there is a small north-facing gabled porch with a central pointed door and two small lancets on each flanking wall. The narrower end bays each have a single lancet window, while the wider bays have pairs. Above the aisle roof, the clerestorey is punctuated with two quatrefoils per bay. The east end is dominated by the semicircular sanctuary, articulated with five slim, tall lancets with sills at high level.

The south façade largely repeats the north side, but without a porch. A substantial new single-storey extension in an L-plan was added to the south-east corner in 1999, wrapping around the apse but connected to the original building only at the former sacristy position. This replaced a small gabled sacristy that previously matched the width of the last bay of the south aisle. A secondary entrance has been formed in the angle of the addition. The extension has been sympathetically designed, repeating the apsidal motif on its north gable, and including a curious cylindrical lantern that lights a sacramental chapel within. The architects were F. M. Corr & Associates.

Throughout the exterior, several of the label mouldings end in sculpted stops — some are carved heads, others rosettes. The walls are faced with rubble sandstone, with neat ashlar sandstone trim to all openings.

INTERIOR

The interior has a lofty nave typical of the building type. Circular columns support the two central arches. The ceiling is coffered, and there is marble panelling in the chancel with mosaic enrichment on the flanking walls. The aisles are lit by paired cusped leaded-light windows. The clerestorey windows are quatrefoil in shape. The interior walls are rendered. The 1965 alterations, described below, substantially changed the character of the sanctuary and are considered to have detracted from the quality of the original interior.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND DEVELOPMENT

Father Daniel Mooney, a professor from the Irish College in Paris, was appointed parish priest of Dungiven in 1868. He resolved to replace the former church across the road and a little to the east, and obtained a plot of ground from the Ogilby family for the church and graveyard. He died in 1876 before the church foundations were cut and is buried in the graveyard. His monument bears the inscription: "…a priest of great zeal and rare powers of eloquence having procured this cemetery he expressed a wish to be buried in it amongst his people."

His successor, Father Michael Tracey, proceeded with the project but not in accordance with the design published in the Irish Builder of 1st July 1877. That earlier published design had been in the Romanesque style, with nave, transepts, square chancel, a north-west tower, porches in the angles of the nave and transepts, and a principal entrance under the tower. Father Tracey, who had previously served as administrator at the recently opened St Eugene's Cathedral (1873) — where O'Neill and Byrne had been architects for the parochial house — appears to have favoured a middle Gothic style with French overtones.

The foundation stone ceremony took place on 16th June 1883, and a scroll of parchment was placed beneath the stone reading: "The Rev. Michael Tracey…placed here the foundation stone of this church…The architects were John O'Neill and Charles McCarthy, the builder John McNally…" John O'Neill had died at the beginning of the previous month, and J. J. McCarthy's son Charles was engaged to supervise the work. However, when the dedication took place on 12th October 1884, it was Mortimer H. Thompson of Belfast who was credited in the Londonderry Journal with the supervision. Thompson had taken over O'Neill's practice in Belfast in 1884, while W. H. Byrne continued to practise from the Dublin office.

Father Edward Loughrey, whose sister Nancy married the sculptor John Valentine Hogan, was parish priest from 1890 to 1915. He moved the old mass stone from Cashel — where the first post-Plantation Catholic church in the parish had been built — to a position on the north side of the present church. He carried out improvements to the church in 1892, probably including the extended buttresses on the north wall.

In 1965, substantial alterations changed both the sanctuary and the west front. Two additional doors were added to the west front on either side of the original single entrance door, in a matching neo-Gothic style. In the sanctuary, the former handsome decorative treatment of the apse was removed and replaced with marble slabs; the former altarpiece and reredos were discarded in favour of a marble ensemble. This work was the gift of Mr Matthew McCloskey, an American millionaire, former American ambassador to Ireland, and a native of the Dungiven parish. The parish priest at the time was Father Hugh Conway, who appointed Malachy Fitzpatrick as architect.

In 1984, repairs were carried out by P. Haughey. The 1999 extension by F. M. Corr & Associates — containing new sacristies, a sacramental chapel and meeting rooms — was designed in a restrained manner with materials sympathetic to the church, and is located at the south-east corner without interfering with the general surviving form of O'Neill's design.

SETTING AND GROUNDS

The church enjoys a fine setting at the south-eastern edge of Dungiven, on the perimeter of the town's development. It is set back from the Glenshane Road behind a random rubble stone boundary wall and a pleasing modern lych gate. Beyond the gate, a sweep of lawn interspersed with trees and shrubs leads via a curving entrance avenue to the church entrance portal. The car park is located across the road. The graveyard lies behind the church and is well filled, with some substantial grave monuments. Notable among them is a large Victorian-style monument in memory of Hugh McCloskey. In a central position in the graveyard stands a large bronze bell on an ungainly steel frame, inscribed: "Church of St Patrick, Gillett & Johnson 1934."