Clanabogan Church, Dromore Road, Clanabogan Lower, Omagh, Co Tyrone, BT78 1SN

Clanabogan Church is a modestly-scaled Gothic Revival Church of Ireland building erected in 1863 to designs by architects Welland and Gillespie, situated on the west side of Clanabogan Road at its corner with Glenfern Road. The building is a detached double-height structure with a rectangular nave and chancel to the north, a gabled vestry to the north-west with a lean-to porch to the south, and a distinctive square broached tower with splay-footed spire to the south-east, abutted by a gabled porch serving as the principal entrance. A single-storey roughcast boiler house was added to the south circa 1980.

The roof is pitched natural slate with deep overhanging eaves supported on cavetto moulded sandstone corbels, fitted with blue and black clay ridge tiles and stone verges on cavetto moulded kneelers. A chimneystack rises to the gables. The walls are constructed of squared-and-snecked rubble with sandstone quoins over a projecting plinth, with splayed angle buttresses bearing gablets to the corners.

The principal elevation faces east, with the nave spanning four windows in width. The two-stage tower is abutted at the left, featuring splayed diagonal buttressing and containing a single window in stage one, with a further window to the south. The belfry stage contains a gothic louvred opening at each elevation and oculi to alternate elevations above. The tower terminates in a splay-footed spire. At the right of the principal elevation is a porch containing a pair of windows. The north gable contains a pointed-arched-headed chamfered sandstone opening with hood moulding, enclosing double-leaf vertically sheeted timber doors with decorative strap hinges. The south gable is abutted centrally by the boiler house, with an exposed section containing a pair of windows and abutted on the right by the tower. The west elevation is four windows wide, abutted at the left by a lean-to porch to the vestry containing a square-headed vertically sheeted timber door in a chamfered shouldered sandstone surround. The gabled vestry is abutted at the left and contains a single window, with three windows to the north. The north gable is abutted centrally by the chancel, which contains a large tracery window surmounted by hood moulding, with the vestry positioned to the right. All windows feature plate tracery containing leaded stained glass in stepped sandstone surrounds with rubble voussoirs.

The High Victorian interior was designed by renowned Irish architect Thomas Drew circa 1889 and is ornately detailed with various types of marble—including Kilkenny, Connemara, and French marble—and mosaic tiles. The east end was decorated in 1894, the work entrusted to Thomas Drew, who undertook the principal work of replacing a poor arch with the present magnificent chancel arch. One design in mosaic on the east wall of the chancel is a copy of an old seal excavated at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. On the south wall of the chancel stands an exquisite piece of statuary in white marble by the celebrated sculptor Sir Thomas Brock, executed in 1885. This memorial commemorates Lieutenant Colonel James Galbraith of the 66th (Royal Berkshire) Regiment, who was killed in action in 1880 at Maiwand, featuring a military scene carved by Brock.

The church is set on an elevated site within a churchyard containing nineteenth and twentieth century graves. The site is bounded to the road by a rubble wall with rubble coping, accessed through a set back entrance consisting of square pillars with cross-gabled coping supporting a pair of cast-iron gates; hedging forms the other boundaries.

The church first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1905–6. Clanabogan was added to the Valuation Revisions in 1865, listed under exemptions as 'church and graveyard'. The building valuation was initially £18.15s in 1865, revised to £40 in 1874, and is recorded as having cost approximately £2,000. The land on which the church was built was owned by the Galbraith family. The church was built as part of a typical gentleman's estate in mid-Victorian Ulster, created by Samuel Galbraith Esquire, comprising a house, a family church for a specially created curacy, and a modern rectory. Reverend T. W. Benson, rector of the parish from 1903 to 1932, remarks that the dedication of the church is not known but may probably be 'Christ Church', judging from its north-to-south orientation.