St Malachy's Parochial Hall, Killymeal Road, Edendork, Tyrone BT71 6LE

St Malachy's Parochial Hall is a detached former community hall completed in 1963, built to serve the Roman Catholic parish of St Malachy's, Edendork. It stands on the south side of the Coalisland Road at its junction with Killymeal Road, approximately 3km south-west of Coalisland and 3km north-east of Dungannon, set to the rear of a large tarmacadam car park. The date of completion is recorded in a Roman numeral inscription (MCMLXIII) on the building itself.

The building is not listed, as it is considered an interesting example from a social history perspective but not an outstanding building of its era and not the best work of an important architect.

The plan comprises a circular double-height main auditorium with a domed roof, fronted by a two-storey rectilinear entrance block containing ancillary accommodation and circulation. The ground level rises from west to east, allowing a split-level transition from two storeys at the front to single storey at the rear.

The principal west-facing elevation is finished in rock-faced concrete block and presents a three-bay symmetrical frontage. A central entrance section sits slightly proud of and taller than two flanking walls. The flanking walls are topped with cast concrete parapets that rise in a draped arch, almost in the manner of Dutch gables, lending prominence to the raised central parapet. All three main openings are at ground floor level. The dominant central opening is a deep-profile cast concrete segmental arch springing from ground level, within which a two-step platform sits above a rendered base supporting a steel-framed glazed screen. This screen is a lattice of horizontal plain glass panels arranged around a central solid two-leaf timber door set, fronted by a large-panel metal security screen fixed to the outside of the glazing. The two flanking walls each have an identical shallow segmental-arch-headed window opening with cast concrete surrounds, elevated to waist height. Each is subdivided by steel frames and mullions into four lights, incorporating a lattice of clear and coloured leaded glass, two leaded glass central panels, and a border of Celtic knotwork. At first floor level, each flanking wall is punctuated by a small circular window containing stained glass in a timber frame in a Celtic knotwork pattern, set within a segmented cast concrete surround shaped as a Celtic cross.

A flat-roofed concrete porch cantilevers out over the main entrance archway, its cornice edge divided into four horizontal bands each stepping slightly outward. Above the porch, and appearing to be supported by it, a stripped-back classical temple-front motif is formed in cast concrete and set into the cut-face stone walling. Five Doric-style pilasters rise without entasis from square pedestals to capitals that fuse simplified Doric and Corinthian styles: a Doric pin-cushion form morphing into a vase-shaped Corinthian core stripped of its acanthus leaf decoration. These slender round pilasters appear to support an entablature consisting of a moulded cornice above a frieze of trapezoidal dentils. A simplified open-top pediment formed in cast concrete bands sits above the entablature, containing a concrete inscription plaque with its own concrete surround and miniature entablature above.

On the south elevation, the south-west corner of the entrance block wraps around as a rectilinear two-storey element transitioning into the beginning of an outer circle, terminated by a tall square buttress rising above the level of the parapet wall. Both the rectilinear and curved sections have a three-light window opening with cast concrete surround at first floor level, each with a central top-hung opening light. The curved wall section also has three additional single openings with top-hung opening lights at ground floor level, two of which are placed close together with their cast concrete surrounds abutting each other. All windows in these sections are uPVC replacements. Beyond the buttress, the wall finish changes from rock-faced block to smooth render, steps out slightly, and drops to single-storey level as the outer circle continues a short distance further to enclose a boiler house beneath an external escape stair. The boiler house has a small boarded-up window and a plain metal doorway, both without surrounds.

The buttress marks the transition to the rotunda of the main auditorium. The rotunda walls are faced in roughcast render above a smooth render base, terminating at parapet level in a smooth render band beneath an overhanging metal roof trim. The south elevation of the rotunda has four window openings, each with ultra-thin plaster architraves and concrete cills, arranged in two pairs, each being a three-light window with a central top-hung opening light. The rear east elevation continues the same treatment around the rotunda, with two square-profile pilasters as the only means of differentiating it from the sides. There is an additional pair of three-light ground floor window openings with central top-hung opening lights here. All ground floor windows in the main auditorium are replacement uPVC.

The building is flat-roofed except over the centre of the auditorium, where a dome rises from an upper rotunda wall. This upper rotunda is punctuated with paired true-arch clerestory windows set between the supports for the rib structure of the dome roof, amounting to 28 clerestory windows in total. It was not possible to confirm at the time of survey whether these clerestory windows had been replaced. A traditional-looking chandelier at the centre of the domed ceiling is understood to be an original feature.

Construction is masonry cavity wall finished in a mix of rock-faced concrete block and roughcast and smooth renders. The roof is covered in a single-ply membrane. Rainwater goods are largely asbestos with some uPVC replacements.

The hall was built to provide entertainment and meeting facilities for the local parish, with a contemporary report stating it was designed for seating 800 people and to include ultra-modern lighting and a spacious stage with full equipment. The architects named in a contemporary report on the opening are Dominic Rafferty, who had a practice in Dungannon, and W. H. McEvoy, possibly a Belfast-based surveyor. However, it has been stated that the local parish priest, Fr Thomas Austin Eustace (1919–81), was himself a driving force behind the building's design and construction. Fr Eustace appears to have held a degree in science and had a particular interest in architecture; he is credited with refurbishing several churches to his own schemes, including St Patrick's at Donaghmore, County Tyrone (1961–63), and the Church of the Immaculate Conception and the Church of the Assumption at Termonfeckin, County Louth (c.1977–79). He also appears to have collaborated with Dominic Rafferty again on the design of a social housing development at Gortnasor in Dungannon in the later 1960s. The initial concept for the hall may therefore have been a joint effort between Fr Eustace and the named architects. The contractors were Donnelly, Connolly and Fee of Coalisland, and a contemporary account singles out the men and boys who helped on site as part of what was clearly partly a community effort.

The hall was officially opened on 16 June 1963 by Dean J. Quinn, Parish Priest of Dungannon. The first night's entertainment was a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance by the Dungannon Musical Society, directed by Fr Eustace, who had founded that society in 1946 shortly after arriving in the parish as curate. Over the following 25 years he is said to have produced 21 shows. The building subsequently became a popular venue for dances and showband concerts throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, and is believed to have remained in use until the mid-1990s.

Fr Eustace was a prominent local figure beyond his architectural and theatrical interests. He became the first priest to broadcast Mass from Northern Ireland on the BBC, as part of the Songs of Praise series in 1963, and was appointed BBC religious affairs adviser. He later founded the Tyrone Development Association, a self-help housing and jobs scheme from which Tyrone Crystal was established in 1971, and set up a ceramics factory in Derry/Londonderry several years later.

The architectural critic Alistair Rowan, writing in North West Ulster (Penguin, 1979), described the hall as "possibly the ugliest building in Ulster and an astonishing example of how not to build in open countryside. A sea of tarmac and an insane façade like a 1930s fireplace."

The building stands in the townland of Edendork, the Irish name of which, Éadan na dTorc, translates as "hill brow of the wild boars."