St Michael's Roman Catholic Church, 9 Clagan Road, Cookstown, Co Londonderry, BT80 9XE

St Michael's Roman Catholic Church stands on the crown of a hill on Clagan Road in Cookstown, commanding a prominent position overlooking the surrounding countryside. Built in 1907 and known as the Corr Memorial Church, it was designed by Ashlin and Coleman, one of Ireland's leading ecclesiastical architectural practices of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The dedication stone on the south-west corner of the main gable records 'The Corr Memorial Church. AD 1907. Patron St Michael'.

The church is constructed of cut sandstone in a distinctive Lombardic Romanesque style with Irish or Celtic nuances. Its plan form comprises a nave, aisles, and chancel, flanked by gabled side porches and chapels. The most striking feature is an offset round tower belfry of Celtic inspiration, attached at the junction of the nave and right-hand aisle, which rises in stages to an open arcaded belfry capped with a conical stone roof and an elaborate ironwork finial.

The east elevation, which faces the main entrance, is symmetrical except for the tower. A high nave gable in two stages dominates the composition, flanked by lower side aisles, with a lower side porch set back to one side and a matching baptistry set back to the other. The walling is rock-faced sandstone laid in regular courses, with tooled edges to projecting pilasters, corbel courses, and corners. Ashlar dressings frame all door and window openings and the upper stages of the tower.

The main entrance is particularly fine, consisting of a pair of original timber diagonally sheeted doors with scrolling decorative ironwork hinges, set within two orders of moulded semi-circular arches carried on small colonnettes with scalloped capitals. Above this rises a tangent gable. The composition displays a high degree of surface articulation through projecting stringcourses, drip mouldings, pilaster strips, and raking corbel courses. A prominent stone cross is placed on the apex of the nave gable. Windows throughout are semi-circular arched with leaded glazing; a small circular cusped rose window is positioned high in the nave gable. Lower-level narrow lancet windows in the tower, side porch, and baptistry have semi-circular heads cut from single stones.

The belfry comprises two arcades of circular columns with simple bell capitals, set between piers which support a large bell. The south elevation shows a long nave lit by pairs of clerestorey lancet windows set between pilaster strips, stepping down at the west end for the chancel, which is lit by single clerestorey lancets. The lower storey is covered by a long side aisle lit by pairs of lancets, with a small porch projecting forward at one end and a transeptal side chapel and sacristy at the other. The north elevation is similar in character. The west elevation follows the same materials and general detailing but is plainer, without corbel courses.

Roofs are of green slate in regular courses, with ridge cresting to the nave and chancel and stone crosses on the gables. Rainwater goods are of moulded cast iron, with gutters, hoppers, and square-section downpipes held by trefoil-pattern brackets. Those serving the nave roof are carried in troughs over the aisle roof.

The interior is almost entirely intact, displaying an appropriate degree of ornamental features throughout. The church stands within its own grounds, which are enhanced by original front boundary walls, gates, and piers. The boundary wall comprises both regularly coursed rock-faced sandstone and snecked sandstone, with two sets of ironwork gates mounted on square piers with moulded caps. One set of gates bears the maker's mark 'W.B. Greer, Belfast'. The grounds are laid out with tarmaced areas around the church base, extending to car parking to the north, with extensive grassed areas to the front and south. The church forms a prominent landmark in its locality.