St. Patrick'S R C Church, Ardicoan, Cushendun, Co.Antrim

St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church stands at Ardicoan, Cushendun, north of the village overlooking the Glendun Road. Built in 1865 to designs by an unknown architect, it occupies a site of long ecclesiastical use, having previously held a pre-Reformation church and an early 19th-century chapel erected between 1804 and 1814.

The church is a mid-19th century parish building with a pitched natural slate roof finished with black clay ridge tiles. Gables feature raised skews with stone copings, kneeler stones, and stone cross finials to the apse end. Lead valleys sit behind raised gables with sandstone coping. The walls are painted roughcast set on a slightly projecting rendered plinth, with sandstone corner buttresses and dressings including stepped quoins and window and door surrounds. Moulded cast-aluminium gutters and circular cast-aluminium downpipes serve throughout. A small extension to the south-west contains a rear entrance porch.

The north-east principal elevation faces the graveyard behind cast-iron railings. It comprises a gable-end with a pointed Gothic arch doorway containing a pair of vertically sheeted timber doors with vision panels, surmounted by a triple lancet Gothic window set in plate-tracery stonework with trefoil insets. The gable terminates in a stone bell-cote containing a rectangular date stone inscribed "A.D 1865" with an engraved dedication reading "DEDICATED TO ST. PATRICK".

The south-east elevation overlooks burial grounds and displays a four-bay nave with tall narrow Gothic pointed single lancet windows in stone surrounds with glazing bars and stained glass designs. Part of an earlier Romanesque arch is exposed beside one window. A projecting single-storey annex abuts the left side, containing a small square-headed window with stone surround and cathedral squares, and a square-headed doorway with render band surround and vertically sheeted timber door with ventilated panel, set two steps above pavement level. A small Gothic pointed lancet window with stained glass appears to the right of the main elevation.

The south-west elevation also overlooks burial grounds. The annex elevation has a corner buttress to the left and a lean-to extension with stone quoins to the right, with a central triple lancet Gothic window in plate-tracery stonework with trefoil insets. Both the annex and main gable feature stone crosses at their apexes above circular ventilation grills with sandstone surrounds.

The north-west elevation, set back behind the graveyard, contains a four-bay nave with tall narrow Gothic pointed single lancet windows in stone surrounds with glazing bars and stained glass. The adjoining annex features a semicircular arched window in plate-tracery stonework with double lancets having trefoil insets and stained glass. Main elevation and annex both have corner buttresses with stone quoins above.

A single-storey vestry was constructed to the south side circa 1904.

Comprehensive renovation took place in 2008–09 undertaken in phases. Phase 1 involved unearthing the original floor, stripping all interior and exterior plaster, and constructing a new Sacristy and Confessional rooms. Phase 2 replaced the roof and timbers, installed a new gallery, and reconstructed the belfry. Phase 3 included internal alterations with new timber pews, overhaul of lighting and sound systems, and addition of new ornamentation including a new altar, priests' chair, and Ambo. The Stations of the Cross, originally installed in the 1950s, received additional work, and the 14 stained glass windows were removed and fully restored by the Art Glass Company of Derry.

The church sits within its own churchyard with burial grounds to each side containing numerous tombstones and mature yew trees. The site is bounded by a low stone wall with two re-built rendered pillars topped with pyramidal caps flanking a pair of decorative iron pedestrian gates accessed from the Glendun Road.

The building continues to serve as the principal Roman Catholic place of worship in Cushendun.