St Catherine’s (RC) Church, Dominic Street, Newry, Co Down

St Catherine's is a Roman Catholic Dominican church on the west side of Dominic Street, Newry, more fully known as the Dominican Church of the Sacred Heart and St Catherine of Sienna. It is a French Gothic revival building with a square tower and spire, constructed in rock-faced Newry granite with sandstone dressings. Designed by the prominent Dublin ecclesiastical practice Ashlin & Co, it is architecturally distinguished and historically significant as the only purpose-built Dominican church in Northern Ireland, and possibly the only spired Dominican church in Ireland. The foundation stone was laid on 23 May 1873 and the church opened on 17 October 1875, with consecration following on 4 August 1906. The Dominicans had come to Newry in 1871, initially based at St Mary's Chapel on Chapel Street before moving to this site.

The main elements of the church are the nave, a semicircular apse at the geographical west end, two lower side aisles, and the tower. Attached to the left aisle, between the chancel and nave, is a two-storey link block connecting to the adjacent Dominican Priory, which abuts the left elevation and forms a complementary group with the church. A lower one-storey annex containing the sacristy abuts the rear wall.

The nave roof is pitched and naturally slated, with a rounded end at the apse, embellished with decorative terracotta ridge tiles, a metal cross finial at the apse end, and a stone cross at the street end. The side aisles have natural slate monopitch roofs with cyma-recta cast-iron rainwater goods. Unless otherwise noted, all walls are of rock-faced granite blocks laid in regular courses, with tooled edges to corners and a chamfered projecting base. Sandstone dressings are used to all openings. A striking polychromatic effect is achieved above all hood moulds and window heads, where alternating black and grey rock-faced granite blocks are laid in a banded pattern.

The main façade faces east onto the street and consists of a fenestrated gable with the tower to the left (terminating the left side aisle) and the side aisle to the right. The gable has a chamfered projecting base course with a diminishing buttress at the right, and is coped with ashlar granite blocks with a kneeler at the right. At the centre, five ashlar granite steps with chamfered parapet walls on both sides and a modern metal handrail between them lead to the main entrance. This entrance takes the form of a Gothic arch divided by a trumeau into two openings, with a six-foil roundel in the tympanum and carved sculpture of a lamb with a crown above; the cusps are foliated. Angle-shafted colonettes with foliated capitals support the deep moulded door reveal. A flush sandstone course runs along the façade on either side of the door at arch-spring level, with a hood mould above whose springing stones are carved with human faces. In the gable above the main door is a Gothic opening with geometric glass inserts and a hood mould with human-face springing stones. This opening contains five narrow lancet windows in its lower portion, with a large circular window of seven cusps at centre flanked by two smaller ones with cinquefoil cusps above. At the gable apex is a small louvred, hood-moulded vent.

To the right of the main gable, five ashlar granite steps with chamfered ashlar parapet walls lead to a diagonally-sheeted timber door set in a moulded and recessed Gothic arch, with a hood mould over and foliated terminals at each end, and a granite string course on either side at arch-spring level. Above this door is a hood-moulded roundel with cinquefoil tracery and leaded glass. A projecting string course runs diagonally from above the roundel towards the main entrance, giving this lean-to a pitched-roof appearance, accentuated by a stone cross on the apex of the mock gable. Abutting the right of this gable is a granite curtain wall with a stepped parapet, containing a door with a dressed granite pointed arch surround that leads to a path along the outside of the church towards the rear.

The tower is square in plan and rises in three stages topped by an octagonal stone spire. The first stage sits proud of the main façade and has a double-stepped granite base course with chamfered ashlar offsets at door arch-spring level. The street frontage of the first stage contains a door detailed in the same manner as the right lean-to gable entrance. The left side of the first stage has three narrow lancet windows with leaded glass. Shallow rock-faced buttresses rise up each corner of the first stage, with ashlar offsets just below second-floor level. A projecting ashlar granite ogee string course with ashlar offsets above separates the first and second stages. The front, left, and rear faces of the second stage each have two tall lancet windows with obscured diamond panes and lead cames; at the rear, where the tower meets the side aisle, the left window cill is raised to clear the aisle roof below. Single roundels with cinquefoil tracery and semicircular hood moulds appear in the walls above the lancets on each face. An ogee-moulded ashlar granite string course separates the second and third stages.

The third stage is octagonal in plan with small octagonal corner towers to alternate faces. Each of the main walls has a louvred lancet opening with deep splayed and stepped reveals and a crocketted gablet above. The tower is surmounted by an ashlar granite spire with a splayed octagonal base, double lancet lucarnes to each side, and four bands of fish-scale decoration between the base and the top. The spire terminates in a crocketted pinnacle with a cast-iron cross finial. The subsidiary corner towers terminate in octagonal, almost conical, spires with stone finials. The spire was erected by McAdorey of Dundalk in 1883–84.

Both side elevations of the nave are similar in treatment, with five pairs of leaded lancet windows with sandstone trimmings and a continuous sandstone course at spring level. The aisle walls have ashlar granite corbels and a window between offset buttresses. Where the confessionals return below three windows on the right elevation and two on the left, a cill-height wall links the buttresses with a flat roof behind. The clerestory walls are of rock-faced and coursed rubble with twelve pointed-arch leaded lancets, now fitted with protective outer glazing. The side aisles terminate at the west end in lean-to gables, each with two plate-tracery lancets and a quatrefoil window above, all with sandstone dressings. The clerestory walls continue around to the apse, where they form a continuous unbroken wall down to ground level.

The two-storey link block connecting the church to the priory is built of rock-faced granite in regular courses with sandstone trimming and a natural-slated pitched roof. Its ground floor is level with the church's ground floor, and its first floor aligns just above the priory's ground floor. The street-facing façade is gabled with ashlar copings. At ground-floor level, a sheeted timber door leading into a chapel has a transom light with a moulded Tudor arch above. To the left is a one-over-one sliding sash window with a head matching that of the door. A sandstone band links both at arch-spring level. At first-floor level, a central Gothic recess contains a pair of etched glass rectangular windows to the oratory, with a carved quatrefoil roundel above. The sacristy annex at the rear has a pitched slate roof with skylights and a canted end bay, each side of which has a pair of rectangular windows with rectangular transoms above and iron security bars.

A number of significant additions and alterations were made to the church after its opening. The side altar to St Joseph, designed by Ashlin and fabricated by Pearse of Dublin, was inaugurated in 1878. The pulpit dates from 1883. The main altar was installed in the 1880s and the altar railings added around 1900. The adjoining priory was added in 1882. The organ was remodelled in 1938. A new hall was added to the north side of the church in 1967, and the building was refurbished in 1969.

Approached from the street by a flight of eight steps in a convex quadrant reveal, the main entrance is flanked by rock-faced retaining walls with ashlar copings supporting Gothic railings — similar railings also run along the front of the priory, and all appear to be copies or replacements of the originals. At the top of the steps stand two cast-iron lamp standards with modern globes, and the area at the top is paved, with additional steps leading up to the main and right side-aisle entrances. In the park opposite, a statue of Mary bears the inscription: "JM & JD. This park is presented by the Misses Quinn of Queen St. House, Newry to the Dominican Fathers who have erected this statue in the consecration of the church by the most Rev. H. O'Neil D.D. Lord Bishop of Dromore on 4 August 1906 the Prior being The Very Rev. D.B. Falvey. St Catherine Pray for us."

The listing extends to the church itself, its boundary walls, railings, and steps.