St. Columba’s Church of Ireland, Church Street, Omagh, Co. Tyrone, BT78 1DG

St. Columba's Church of Ireland, Church Street, Omagh

St. Columba's is a triple-height Gothic Church of Ireland church, built between 1863 and 1871 to designs by J. E. Rogers, architect to the Church Commissioners in Dublin. The tower followed in 1873. It replaced an earlier church on the same elevated site dating from 1777, and was consecrated on 28th October 1871. Rogers designed the building in a 13th-century Gothic style, beginning with the chancel in 1863 and originally intending to incorporate features from the earlier 18th-century church, including its tower. That plan was later abandoned. The design of the tower closely resembles other towers Rogers designed, such as Skerries Church of Ireland in County Dublin. Rogers left architecture a decade after completing this building to pursue a career in watercolours.

The church sits on the highest point in Omagh, on the east side of Church Street, and forms part of a notable group of four places of worship of different denominations in the town, the others being Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, Omagh Methodist Church, and Trinity Presbyterian Church.

Architectural Overview

The plan comprises a rectangular nave facing west, flanked by catslide aisles and lower transepts to the north and south. To the north there is a three-stage tower with spire. To the south there is a double-height gabled porch. To the east there is a lower chancel with a lean-to shed to the north, and a lean-to vestry to the east of the south transept.

The roof is covered in natural slate with angled blue/black clay ridge tiles, stone-coped verges, and ogee metal replacement gutters on timber rafter feet. There is a blocked stone chimney stack to the north elevation of the vestry. Walling throughout is random-coursed basalt with dressed sandstone quoins. Windows are gothic stained glass set in splayed sandstone surrounds. Doors are gothic in style, vertically sheeted double-leaf with wrought-iron strap hinges, with a quatrefoil plate tracery tympanum above each, surmounted by a hoodmould.

Exterior Details

The principal west gable has a splayed plinth. Five cusped lancets in gabled surrounds are divided by cusped colonnettes, surmounted by a Geometric tracery window with hoodmould and splayed sill course. The apex has a quatrefoil with hoodmould.

The tower has angled buttresses with offsetting and a splayed and moulded stringcourse above each stage. The first and second stages each have two windows; the left cheek is similarly detailed. The third stage has gothic plate tracery with a cusped column flanked by gothic stone-louvred openings with cinquefoils above, repeated on all elevations except the south, which is blank. The broach spire has decorative banding. The south elevation of the tower abuts the church; the right (north) cheek has two windows to the second stage and a door to the first stage.

The porch has angled buttresses with offsetting. Its gable has a door with a bipartite lancet above. The left cheek has a single door; the right cheek is abutted by the aisle, with the exposed section left blank. The south aisle has two windows.

The south transept gable is symmetrical, with two bipartite double-height windows with trefoils above, flanked by single windows to each side; the apex has an octafoil with plate tracery. The left cheek is abutted by the aisle to the left, with the exposed section having a single cusped window. The right cheek is abutted to the right by the vestry, with the exposed section blank.

The vestry's east elevation has square-headed casements with splayed surrounds and two windows. The left cheek has a single window to the left of a shoulder-headed, vertically sheeted door with wrought-iron strap hinges. The right cheek is blank.

The nave is entirely abutted to the north by, from left, the transept, the aisle, and the tower, and to the south by, from left, the porch, the aisle, and the transept. The exposed section is blank.

The north transept is detailed as the south transept, but both cheeks have windows. The north aisle is three windows wide. The lean-to shed is detailed similarly to the vestry. The chancel cheeks are blank; its gable has square and snecked walling with a single Geometric tracery window with hoodmould and a trefoil above.

Interior

The arcade capitals and west arcade windows are in the Venetian Gothic style. The east and west windows were donated by the Stack and Galbraith families respectively. The east window bears a maker's mark of O'Connor. The mosaic reredos was the work of the distinguished architect Thomas Drew.

At the east end of the nave stands a freestanding polished granite Roll of Honour for the Ulster Defence Regiment, created around 1991 and relocated to this church around 2006 from St. Lucia's Barracks. Alongside it is a marble World War II wall-mounted memorial, and beside that a similarly detailed memorial dedicated to the dead of the First World War, bearing a maker's mark of C. W. Harrison and Sons of Dublin. Near these memorials is the Houston Memorial Brass Eagle lectern, dating from around 1879. To the right is the varnished timber Browne Memorial pulpit of around 1899, which replaced an earlier Gothic-styled stone pulpit that was subsequently sold to Cappagh Church.

In the south transept, on the east wall, is a white marble wall-mounted memorial dedicated to the Reverend William George Stack, Late Curate of the Parish of Drumragh, who died 14th July 1837, of Mullaghmore House. Alongside it hangs a similar neoclassical marble wall-mounted memorial dedicated to John Hamilton, M.D., Physician of the Omagh Fever Hospital, who died 27th November 1856, and described as erected by his friends of every rank and creed. On the west wall hangs a modern wall-mounted polished granite memorial dedicated to the Royal Ulster Constabulary George Cross and all those who made the supreme sacrifice 1922 to 2001, installed in 2008.

Setting

The church is set back from the road on an elevated site, bordered by decorative cast-iron railings on a splayed stone plinth, with lawn to the north and south and a rubble stone boundary wall to the south. A modern former rectory stands across Church Street to the west. The listing extends to the boundary walls, railings, and gates. The church lies within a conservation area.

Historical Associations

The Stack family, associated with this church through the window donation and the memorial in the south transept, also built Mullaghmore House. The Galbraith family is associated with Clanabogan House. The current church appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1905 to 1906. A previous church is recorded on the first and second edition maps of 1833 and 1854 respectively. Valuation records note a church and graveyard under exemptions, with a building valuation of £49 10s.