S S Patrick & Brigid’s Church, Moyle Road, Ballycastle, Co Antrim

S S Patrick & Brigid's Church, Ballycastle

An imposing and well-proportioned sandstone church in early Gothic style, designed by Jeremiah McAuley, a priest and architect, on an elevated site overlooking Ballycastle. The building was constructed between 1870 and 1874, with the spire added in 1890 and completed in 1898. In the 1990s the church was substantially extended with the addition of north and south transepts, porches, and a crypt, along with liturgical reorganisation. The original character of the building remains largely intact despite these additions. The church contains good original interiors and a notable trussed roof. The grounds are well maintained with good entrance gates. The building is of local historic value and wider interest due to its original architect. It is a building of social importance.

The church is a sandstone-built aisled structure with a tower and spire at the south-west corner. The west front is gabled with north and south aisles. The pointed central doorway features two shouldered doors with decorative trumeau and moulded architrave with ball flower ornament. Above the doors in the tympanum is a low-relief sculpture in white stone with moulded hood and steps. Over the portal are three long narrow pointed lancets, with the centre one taller and topped by a trefoil. The nave gable is steeply pitched with bargestone overhang and a decorative Celtic cross on top.

The three-stage tower has twice-shouldered and angled buttresses to the top of the second stage. At ground-floor level is a single narrow lancet with hood. A stringcourse separates the stages. The second stage has a pair of lancets with a quatrefoil above. Two courses of battered stone sit below the belfry, which contains two open lancets within a shallow frame topped by arched corbelling. The base of the spire begins with a corbel course from which an octagonal spire springs directly, featuring pinnacled spirelets at four corners and gabled lucarnes between. At the midway point of the spire are four small gabled lucarnes and eight tiny ones nearer the apex. The spire is banded with narrow courses of pink and red sandstone, terminating with a crown mould and metal cross with lightning conductor. The four faces of the tower are similar except where overlapped by the nave and aisle.

The north aisle terminates at the west end with a small cushed and labelled lancet, with a roof pitch less than the nave and similar barge detail. The north elevation originally had a row of two-light pointed windows over five and a half bays, with a pointed door in the first bay. Closely spaced corbels sit under the gutter, and the roof is natural slate. The clearstorey is six bays long with pairs of pointed lancets in the central bays and single lancets at the end bays, corbels under the gutter, natural slated roof with a crested ridge. A new north transept projects from the fourth and fifth bays without aisles but with a large wide porch to the west, creating a gap between it and the north aisle. This porch has a pointed door on its west gable with an oculus on each side and two oculii on its flanking walls. The north gable of the transept has a large three-light pointed window with Y-tracery, while the east wall features a large square-headed six-pane window. The transept roof pitch broadly matches that of the north aisle, with natural slate and a crested roof to the porch.

The east elevation has a nave gable with three narrow pointed lancets as at the west end, with similar bargestones. The gables of the aisles have three clustered narrow lancets with the centre one taller. All windows lack hood mouldings. Attached to the south aisle is a two-storey former sacristy block projecting beyond the aisle and creating a recess between it and the chancel. The sacristy gable has two-light pointed windows at ground floor and a single light above, with bargestones surmounted by a cross. A shouldered door sits on the north wall with a small quatrefoil above.

The south elevation is dominated by the new south transept and porch, which corresponds with that to the north. The two-storey former sacristy knits into it with a slightly lower ridge line, its cresting retained. The south wall of the sacristy has three two-light pointed windows at ground floor and four single narrow lancets above. The walls of the church are constructed in soft biscuit sandstone, while the sandstone of the extension is slightly rawer in tone but will mellow with time.

The church is sited on rapidly rising ground on the east side of Moyle Road, set well back from it with its west front parallel to the road. The site is generous, with a large carpark to the north, a graveyard to the east, and a primary school on lower ground to the south. The spire of S S Patrick & Brigid dominates the roofscape of Ballycastle.

The present church replaced a former chapel located at the end of Fairhill Street, which became a school in 1875 and is now used as a cattle and sheep mart. The church was designed by Jeremiah McAuley, curate in the parish, in 1870 and dedicated in August 1874. McAuley was an architect who became a priest of the Down & Connor diocese and later joined the Passionist Order, despite suffering from persistent ill-health. He was also the designer of St Peter's Cathedral in Belfast, completed under architects John O'Neill and Mortimer Thompson. The building without spire cost £4,000. The spire was added in July 1890 by mason Charles Darragh. A bell, weighing 30 hundredweights, was erected in 1892. The spire was completed in 1898 and was for a time used to affix an aerial for Marconi's experiments, though the parish priest later withdrew his permission. The Stations of the Cross, supplied by Mayer of Munich, cost £147 and were erected in 1909. Mosaic work in the sanctuary was undertaken in 1930 to honour Father Bernard Murphy, canon of the diocese.

Recent restoration work began in November 1992 and was completed in October 1993. The project was overseen by Parish Priest Very Reverend N Watson, with architect P Byrne of Belfast and builder McHenry Bros of Ballycastle. Structural engineers were Albert Fry Associates of Belfast. Stonework was carried out by S McConnell & Sons of Kilkeel, and new decorative glass was provided by Sheridan Stained Glass Creations of County Kilkenny.

The church gates, piers, and boundary walls are included within the listing. The building lies within a conservation area.