St. Tierney's RC Church, Rosslea, Co Fermanagh, BT92

St. Tierney's Roman Catholic Church, Rosslea

A large church of circa 1800 with later tower and entrance porch dated circa 1834, aligned northwest to southeast parallel with Church Road. The building is set within a mature churchyard containing numerous stone memorials from the 18th and 19th centuries.

The church has a pitched natural slate roof with stone verge and kneelers to each gable. The southeast gable is crowned with a cloverleaf cross finial. Rainwater goods are half-round plastic. The principal elevation faces southwest. Walls are cement dashed and painted with stepped dressed stone quoins and sandstone dressings to all openings.

The southwest elevation features four equally spaced Y-tracery lancet windows with splayed and tooled reveals and cill. Each window is framed by a reeded colonette with a moulded head, and contains fixed leaded and coloured margin-paned lights with a central decorative panel. The northwest gable is abutted at its centre by a three-staged tower (described below). This gable is exposed at either side of the tower and has lancet windows containing pairs of 6/4 sliding sashes with horns and traceried heads. A pair of modern sheeted timber doors is positioned at the left end of this elevation.

The northeast elevation has been partly abutted by a sympathetic two-storey sacristy of circa 1987. The sacristy has a pitched artificial roof and cement dashed walls matching the church. Its northwest face contains a tongue-and-groove sheeted and painted door to the right end with decorative furniture, and to the left a 6/6 sliding sash window with horns and painted cill. The first floor has two diminished windows set slightly to the right, with a blank end gable. The northeast face of the sacristy has two windows to each floor. A cement dashed plinth with oil tank sits at the centre of the northeast elevation.

The southeast gable of the church is abutted at its centre by a lower two-storey entrance porch set below the eaves level of the main block, and to the right by a boiler house set flush with the northeast elevation. The porch has lancet windows containing pairs of sashes matching those to the northwest gable. The porch roof is concealed behind an embattled stone parapet. Its southwest face has a pair of timber sheeted doors with decorative furniture set within a chamfered reveal with hood mould. Above the doors is a circular window with spoke-glazing. The southeast gable of the porch has a lancet window to each floor: the ground floor contains a pair of Y-tracery 2/2 sliding sashes set within a chamfered reveal and hood mould, while above is a pair of 2x3 casements with a traceried transom. Both windows are without cill but have a narrow strip of lead flashing beneath them. The northeast face of the porch is blank.

The boiler house has a lean-to natural slate roof with a small skylight. Its southeast face has a 2/2 sliding sash window with painted concrete cill to the left and a pair of modern timber louvred doors to the right. The northeast face is blank.

The tower, added to the church circa 1834, is three-staged and constructed in coursed stone with V-jointed stepped quoins and a moulded stringcourse defining each stage. All openings have a hood mould over them. The first stage contains the main entrance to the southwest face, set within slightly advanced and chamfered reveals with a sheeted timber tympanum over the door. Above the entrance is a dressed stone shield inscribed "DEO/ Optimo Maximo/ DEDICATUM/ MDCCCXXXIV/ CONDITUM" (To God the Best and Greatest, Dedicated 1834, Founded). The northwest face has a narrow lattice window set within a lancet opening with stepped reveals, sweeping cill, and hood mould with label stops. The northeast face is blank.

The second stage of the tower has a circular window matching that to the entrance porch on each exposed face. The window to the northwest face is set within a diamond-shaped reveal with a triangular hood mould.

The third stage stands free from the church and rises to a crenellated parapet with tall pointed finials to each corner, each bearing cusped mouldings. Each face of the third stage has a tall lancet opening containing a pair of cusped-headed timber louvres.

The churchyard is mature and well-planted, with a weeping willow tree to the southwest of the church. It contains many stone memorials from the 18th and 19th centuries, some with wrought-iron enclosures. The earliest memorial, dated circa 1700 and located to the southeast of the church, has lost its upper half. A Celtic cross erected in 1949 commemorates three local United Irishmen—Patrick Smith, John Connolly, and Brian McMahon—who were hanged in Enniskillen in 1797. Another notable memorial of circa 1824 is positioned to the right on entry and bears an inscription: "Dear friend as you pass by/ as you are now so once was I/ As I am now so you must be/ prepare the way to follow me", to which local people have added the rejoinder "to follow you I'd be quite content, but I'd be damned if I knew which way that you went!"

The churchyard is enclosed on all sides by a rubble stone wall with field stone embattlements. It curves inwards to a pair of square-section V-jointed dressed stone gate piers with fluted frieze and moulded cornice. These piers support a pair of wrought-iron gates with scrolled finials.