Roman Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart, Church Street, Omagh, Co. Tyrone, BT78 5HE

Roman Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart, Church Street, Omagh

This is a triple-height French Gothic Roman Catholic church, built over a raised basement, dated by datestones to 1892–1899 and designed by William Hague Jr. (1840–1899) of 50 Dawson Street, Dublin. It was constructed by the Colhoun Brothers of Derry at a contract price of £46,000. The church was refurbished around 2000 and is situated on the west side of Church Street. It is the largest building in an ecclesiastical campus that also includes the former schoolhouse and parochial house, and forms part of a wider group of notable churches of four different denominations in Omagh.

EXTERIOR

The plan consists of a rectangular nave facing east, flanked by five-stage towers with spires at the east end. Double-height lean-to aisles run along the north and south sides, with a lower chancel to the west flanked on each side by gabled double-height chapels. A double-height sacristy over a basement lies to the south of the south chapel and aisle; there is also a modern projecting bay to the north of the north aisle, which is of no architectural interest. The roof is pitched natural slate with fleur-de-lys red clay ridge tiles, moulded stone verges with Celtic crosses to the apexes, ogee cast-iron gutters over splayed stone corbels, and rectangular downpipes.

The external walling is rock-faced stone over a moulded plinth, with dressed sandstone quoins and moulded trim. Windows are gothic stained glass casements with flush splayed sandstone surrounds and sills; some have Decorated tracery with label-ended hoodmoulds. Basement windows are depressed gothic painted timber four-over-four sashes. Doors are gothic raised-and-fielded six-panelled double-leaf with wrought-iron strap hinges, sculptural tympanum above, set in four-stage rebated reveals supported on crocketed polished granite colonnettes, with a label-ended hoodmould.

The principal east gable is symmetrical except for the differing spires. The apex has a tripartite lancet with hoodmould over a double-height Decorated tracery window with a double-rebated surround, supported on full-height crocketed red stone colonnettes extending to the base and framing a square base containing the principal entrance. The door has a timber tympanum without a hoodmould in a gabled surround with crocketed pinnacles and foliated spandrels; devotional figures of saints occupy the outer spandrels. The entrance is flanked on each side by a single cusped lancet and three loop windows stacked vertically, lighting the internal spiral stairs at the junctions with the towers.

The south tower has moulded stone stringcourses between its stages, with openings contained in a continuous recessed panel above the first stage. On the south elevation, the first stage has a Geometric tracery window; the left cheek is entirely abutted by the aisle; the right cheek has a door; and the rear (north) cheek is entirely abutted by the nave. The second stage has paired lancets, each with embossed shields on transoms bearing date plaques; the left cheek is similarly detailed but without date plaques; the right cheek has a statuary niche supported on a cluster of colonnettes with a crocketed canopy. The third stage on all elevations has triple loop windows in a gothic cusped arcade. The fourth (belfry) stage on all elevations has a single pointed-arched Geometric tracery opening with metal louvres. The fifth stage has decorative gablets flanked by crocketed pinnacles, surmounted by a squat crocketed octagonal spire with pinnacles and a wrought-iron Celtic Cross finial. The north tower has an elongated spire with lucarnes at the cardinal points, each bearing a wrought-iron Celtic Cross finial. The two towers are of unequal height; this was intentional and not, as local tradition has suggested, the result of building funds running out.

The south elevation is abutted by the aisle, with the chapel to the left and the tower to the right. The clerestorey is seven windows wide with clamp buttresses between Geometric tracery windows. The aisle is six windows wide with corresponding louvred loops at basement level; the left cheek is entirely abutted by the chapel and the right cheek by the tower. The rear west gable is abutted by the chancel; the exposed section is blank. The chancel gable has a single double-height Geometric tracery window with a loop over and buttresses with offsetting; at basement level there are three windows; the cheeks are abutted by the chapels and the exposed sections are blank. Each chapel has two gothic cusped windows with a trefoil above in flush splayed surrounds, plus two basement windows; the aisles abut each cheek, and the right cheek is two windows wide with a stained glass trefoil in the apex and buttresses with offsetting at the ends. The south chapel elevation is entirely abutted by the sacristy. The north elevation is detailed as the south but without the sacristy, with the aisle abutted to the centre by the modern projecting bay of no architectural interest.

INTERIOR

The interior is described by Alistair Rowan as memorable. Behind the elaborate entrance front lies a long, plain, Puginesque gabled nave with lean-to aisles. The chancel is expressed by a step in the roof ridge, and the side chapels at the ends of the aisles have independently gabled roofs.

The high altar was dedicated in memory of Archbishop John Hughes of New York City (1797–1864), who was born near Omagh and emigrated in 1817. Hughes was one of the most prominent and influential 19th-century American Catholics, notable for founding and building many of New York City's Catholic institutions including the French Gothic twin-towered St. Patrick's Cathedral — a connection that lends particular resonance to the twin-towered French Gothic design of Sacred Heart itself. Funds donated by his admirers paid for the high altar.

The window above the high altar, considered the church's finest piece of stained glass by Rowan, was designed and executed at a cost of £600 by Mayer & Co. of Munich, the celebrated German stained glass makers who were artists to the Holy See and who supplied most of the stained glass to Roman Catholic churches of this period. This window was refurbished between 1938 and 1948. The towers, this window, and possibly the rose window over the organ were donated by Edward Boyle. The stained glass in the side chapels was also by Mayer & Co. and was donated mostly by the Broderick family of New York and Brooklyn, as well as other families in New York City and St. Louis, Missouri. Mayer & Co. also supplied the fourteen Stations of the Cross at a cost of £35 each, totalling £490; these were refurbished and repainted in 1998 by Irish Contract Seating of Dromod, County Leitrim.

The organ was manufactured by the Positive Organ Company Limited of Berkley Road, Chalk Farm, London, at a cost of £2,500, and built by a Mr. Rousch to designs by Reverend H. Bewerunge of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, who gave a recital on the evening of dedication. In 1964 the organ was rebuilt by the Irish Organ Company of the Steeple Road industrial estate in Antrim. The polished oak confessionals, now located in the transepts, were constructed at a cost of £300 by a Mr. Cosgrove of Glasgow, formerly of Fintona. The pews were made in Canada, shipped via Glasgow, and assembled by the Bennett Furnishing Company at a cost of £5 each, totalling £700. Our Lady's Altar was completed around 1917 and St. Joseph's Altar around 1929.

HISTORICAL NOTES

The church is first shown on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1905–6, captioned "RC Church." The site is recorded in 1893 under exemptions as "site for RC Chapel," and the church was added to the Valuation Revisions in 1916 as "RC Church and land," valued at £959.

The foundation stone ceremony took place on 18th June 1893, presided over by Cardinal Logue of Armagh. Construction was already well underway at the time and the stone was laid approximately half a metre from the front entrance. The dedication occurred on 28th May 1899, presided over again by Cardinal Logue, together with the Most Reverend Dr. O'Doherty, Bishop of Derry; the Most Reverend Dr. O'Donnell, Bishop of Raphoe; Monsignor Bernard McNamee, parish priest; and the Reverend James O'Kane, parish priest of Cappagh. At the dedication, Dr. O'Doherty unveiled the Archbishop Hughes Memorial Altar, and the organ had already been installed. Despite this ceremonial dedication, the church remained unconsecrated according to custom until it was free from debt, which did not occur until fifty-six years later. A Reverend Daniel McCrea, writing in 1910, referred to a heavy annual head-rent payable to "Mrs. Herbert and the Misses Guy" that he hoped would be resolved. In the early 1950s the Very Reverend Patrick McDowell finally bought out the remaining ground rent, enabling the final consecration of the building on 14th July 1955.

The north spire was contracted to Mr. Colhoun in September 1895 for £1,835. In May 1897 he was given a further six-month contract for £1,150 to add additional height, as the spire designs had been heightened a year after construction began. The south spire was not added until around 1905, and at the time of dedication the north spire was still in scaffolding.

The bell in the north tower came from the earlier Brook Street Chapel and was made by Tyrone-born Mr. Sheridan at the Sheridan foundry in Dublin in October 1849. It is stamped "Erin go brath" and inscribed: "Laudo Deum verum (I praise the true God) / Plebem voco (I call the faithful) / Congrego clerum (I gather the clergy) / James Sheridan, Dublin."

This church replaced the earlier Brook Street Chapel, which had been built with Gothic detailing in 1829 and had a four-stage tower added around 1849. The rear of the church is now used as a graveyard for priests. The hillside was originally landscaped by a Mr. Shepherd of Dublin at a cost of £300, with a large rockery and grotto created. Incorporated into the walls is a stone bearing a faded inscription of "1117," which came from the demolished Brook Street Chapel but was originally excavated from the ruins of Gortmore Abbey.

The church reopened on 30th August 1998 following substantial renovations, at which time a new Castle Street porch and altar were added.

As William Hague died in the same year Sacred Heart was dedicated, the church has been described as "a culmination of his amazing catalogue of completed ecclesiastical designs and his continuous championship of the Gothic Revival style." Hague designed several churches in his native County Cavan, as well as the similarly French Gothic styled Roman Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception (1890–95) in Strabane, and the Cathedral of St. Eunan at Letterkenny, which was completed by his partner T. F. McNamara following Hague's death.

SETTING

The church occupies an elevated site at a road junction, with a graveyard and lawn to the east, terraced stairs to the south, and tarmac footpaths surrounding it. To the south on Church Street stands the modern St. Joseph's Parish Hall; to the west are the former Christian School, the parochial house, and the modern St. Joseph's Parochial House; to the northwest is the modern St. Colmcille's Primary School. Rowan describes Sacred Heart as "by far the most ambitious piece of architecture in Omagh, set at the top of the town and dominating both the court house and the Church of Ireland St. Columba beside it." Along Church Street to the south lie St. Columba's Church of Ireland, Omagh Methodist Church, and Trinity Presbyterian Church, making this one of an important collection of churches representing four different denominations.