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

St Mary’s, Bannagh is a small rural RC church constructed prior to the 1830’s. The floor plan is a rectangular nave aligned almost E - W with a porch added at the West end of the southern side and a sacristy added at the East end. It is located on a minor road a short distance north of the A35 - two miles NW of Kesh. The South elevation has three lancet windows evenly spaced to the right of a single storey porch. The lancets have small rectangular leaded lights of roughcast green glass with narrower margin panes - openings have narrow smooth plasters bands. The bottom two rows are steel opening lights. The porch has roughcast render and a smooth render plinth - as the main walls - with a taller smooth rendered breakfront surmounted by a painted stone cross. It has a flat roof complete with parapets topped with large painted copings. Painted vertically sheeted double entrance doors are set in a stepped opening. It is thought that the porch was added in 1911-12. Above it in the nave wall is an infilled pointed arch opening that probably housed the original entrance door. West elevation is blind with painted stone kneelers at each side of the gable - which rises above the roof line and is coped, with a stone cross at the ridge line. North elevation has four evenly spaced lancet windows as the South elevation. East elevation is blind except for a small single storey sacristy probably added as part of the 1911 alterations and entered from the South side through a vertically sheeted door. It has roughcast render, flush timber eaves boards and a uPVC picture window in the East gable. The nave gable, above, has stone kneelers and coping stones as the West gable but with the addition of an external chimney breast and a covered smoke stack supporting a stone cross. Setting: Bannagh church sits within a grassed graveyard with hedged boundaries on the three sides away from the road. On the road side, modern galvanised steel entrance gates - vehicular and separate pedestrian, are supported on square pillars with pyramidal caps. Either side is roughcast rendered walling which runs the whole length of the roadside - with smooth rendered bands and a shaped coping. It complements the church and was probably constructed in 1911. Bannagh National School was located within the graveyard close to the boundary wall and was demolished soon after its closure in 1972. 50m to the South is Bannagh Community Centre that was refurbished in 1996 - rendered with fibre cement slated roof and uPVC windows. The wider setting is entirely rural comprising agricultural farmland. Materials: Walling: painted roughcast render with smooth render plinth RWG: Ogee uPVC gutters and uPVC downpipes except on the porch where they are cast iron. Roof: fibre cement slates Windows: Fixed leaded lights except in the sacristy