St Dympna RC Church, St Dympna's Road, Dromore, Co Tyrone

St Dympna RC Church is a detached double-height Roman Catholic church dated 1883, located on the south side of St Dympna's Road in Dromore, Donemana. It stands on the site of an earlier chapel recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833, which itself replaced an even earlier chapel from around 1830.

The church is rectangular in plan with the nave aligned north-south. A single-storey entrance porch dated around 1917 projects from the east elevation, and a single-storey sacristy is attached to the west. The building is covered with natural slate roofs featuring blue and black ridge tiles, raised masonry verges, and cross finials. The eaves are corbelled and support original cast-iron rainwater goods with a u-profile.

The walls are rendered in roughcast with stepped quoins and a projecting plinth. The principal east-facing elevation is five windows wide. The windows are Gothic arched with geometric Y-tracery and latticed stained glass, set within chamfered surrounds and splayed cills, though most are now broken and blocked internally. The south and north elevations each contain a single pointed-arched stained glass window. The south gable contains three Gothic arched openings, now boarded and lacking glass. The west elevation is two windows wide.

A date stone on the nave wall reads: "Erected to the / Glory of the Most / High and DOM. 1883 / under the inspection / of the / REV. P. GORDON / E McGuigan / Builder." The entrance porch, dated 1917, has a hipped roof and features a central Gothic arched double-leaf timber sheeted door surmounted by a plaque reading "DEDICATED TO THE / OMNIPOTENT GOD / UNDER THE INVOCATION OF / ST. DYMPHNA. VIRGIN & MARTYR 1917," with a statue at the apex. The sacristy is similarly detailed to the nave, with a projecting smooth rendered chimneystack in its west gable flanked by windows on either side. A square-headed replacement timber door stands at the centre of the north gable.

The church is situated on an elevated site with the former primary school to the east and graveyard to the west and south. The site boundaries include mature hedging to the west and south, and two sets of cast-iron gates at the east supported on smooth rendered piers with stepped coping. These piers are connected by smooth rendered walling with saddleback coping and cast-iron railings. A random rubble wall encloses the north boundary, also forming the boundary of the adjacent former primary school. Access is via an adjacent car park at the east.

Ordnance Survey records show that by the third edition map of 1905-6, the church had been replaced by a much larger building of the same width but extended southward, with the adjacent Dromore School also appearing. By the fourth edition of 1938, the church had acquired its eastern porch and western sacristy, with a bell-tower to the south-east. Valuation records from 1933 note capacity for approximately 800 people and estimate the cost of construction at £3,406.

The building survives as an example of rural ecclesiastical architecture, though few original external details remain beyond some original latticed glazed windows and the date stone. Various alterations and losses have compromised its architectural and historic interest. It is grouped, though not contemporary, with the adjacent former primary school and bell-tower.