St Mary's RC Church, Bannagh, Bannagh More, Co Fermanagh

St Mary's, Bannagh is a small rural Roman Catholic church located off the A35, two miles northwest of Kesh in County Fermanagh. Constructed prior to 1830, and possibly dating from the late 18th century in the final decades after the relaxation of the Penal Laws, it is among the early chapels established in rural areas following Catholic Emancipation. The church was likely built by a local skilled builder rather than an architect.

The building comprises a rectangular nave aligned almost east to west, with a porch added to the west end of the southern side and a sacristy added at the east end. All external walls are rendered in painted roughcast with a smooth render plinth. The south elevation features three evenly spaced lancet windows to the right of a single-storey porch. The lancets contain small rectangular leaded lights of roughcast green glass with narrower margin panes and smooth plaster bands around the openings; the bottom two rows are steel opening lights. The porch has roughcast render with a smooth render plinth, a flat roof with parapets topped by large painted copings, and painted vertically sheeted double entrance doors set in a stepped opening. An infilled pointed arch opening above the porch in the nave wall probably housed the original entrance door. The west gable rises above the roof line and is coped with painted stone kneelers at each side and a stone cross at the ridge. The north elevation has four evenly spaced lancet windows matching those on the south. The east elevation is largely blind except for a small single-storey sacristy entered from the south side through a vertically sheeted door, with roughcast render, flush timber eaves boards, and a uPVC picture window in the east gable. The east gable features stone kneelers and coping stones, an external chimney breast, and a covered smoke stack supporting a stone cross. The roof is clad in fibre cement slates with ogee uPVC gutters and downpipes, except on the porch where they are cast iron.

The interior retains fine Gothic Revival fittings, including the altar, reredos, and altar rails, which contribute significantly to the church's architectural and historical interest.

The building was substantially refurbished in 1911–12 when alterations and additions were carried out to plans by Dublin architect William Alphonsus Scott. It is probable that the present roof, porch, and bellcote date from this period, although the porch does not appear on Ordnance Survey maps prior to 1965. The church has remained unaltered since these early 20th-century works, which do not detract from its architectural interest. A small National School was erected in the graveyard in 1870 and demolished sometime after its closure in 1972; the church hall remains and together with the church continues to serve the local community.

The church sits within a grassed graveyard with hedged boundaries on three sides. Modern galvanised steel gates—vehicular and separate pedestrian—are supported on square pillars with pyramidal caps. Roughcast rendered walling runs the length of the roadside boundary with smooth rendered bands and shaped coping, probably constructed during the 1911 alterations. The wider setting is entirely rural, comprising agricultural farmland. Fifty metres to the south stands Bannagh Community Centre, refurbished in 1996 with rendered walls, fibre cement slate roof, and uPVC windows. The graveyard contains the grave of Corporal Michael Slevin (1826–1902), who was awarded the Victoria Cross for his role in the taking of Fort Jhansi during the Indian Mutiny of 1857–58.

An 'RC Chapel' of similar footprint appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1835 and is recorded in the contemporary 1834 valuation as an 'old' thatched structure measuring 63 feet by 21½ feet by 7 feet. The continuity in plan, the overall single-storey simplicity, and the absence of evidence for major reconstruction suggest that, apart from its roof, the present church is substantially the same building documented in the 1830s. The revised Ordnance Survey map of 1856 shows no change to the building or its setting. A small vestry extension was added to the chapel by 1905.