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

St Catherine's (RC) Church, Newry

This is a French Gothic revival church constructed in Newry granite with sandstone dressings, located on the west side of Dominic Street. More fully known as the Dominican Church of the Sacred Heart and St Catherine of Sienna, it is attached on its left elevation to St Catherine's Dominican Priory.

The church comprises a nave with a semicircular apse at its west end, two lower side aisles, and a square tower. The nave roof is pitched natural slate 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.

All walls are constructed of rock-faced granite blocks laid in regular courses with tooled edges to corners and a chamfered projecting base. Sandstone dressings frame all openings. A distinctive polychromatic effect is created by alternating black and grey rock-faced granite blocks placed above window hood moulds or heads.

The main façade faces east onto Dominic Street and comprises a fenestrated gable with the tower on the left (terminating the left side aisle) and the side aisle on the right. The gable has a chamfered projecting base course with a diminishing buttress at right, coped with ashlar granite blocks and a kneeler at right. Five ashlar granite steps with chamfered parapet walls and a modern metal handrail lead to the main entrance. This features a Gothic arch separated by a trumeau into two openings, with a six-foil roundel in the tympanum and carved sculpture of a lamb with crown above, with cusps that are foliated. Angle shafted colonettes with foliated capitals support the deep moulded door reveal. A flush sandstone course runs along the façade either side of the door at arch spring level, and a hood mould has human face springing stones.

Above the main door, within the gable, is a Gothic opening with geometric glass inserts and a hood mould with human face springing stones. This opening comprises five narrow lancet windows in the lower portion, with above them a large central circular window of seven cusps and two smaller windows on either side with cinquefoil cusps. A small louvred hood-moulded vent sits in the gable apex.

To the right, five ashlar granite steps with chamfered ashlar parapet walls lead to a diagonally-sheeted timber door set in a moulded and recessed Gothic arch. A hood mould with foliated terminals crowns it, and a granite string course runs either side of the arch spring. Above the 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, creating 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 dressed granite pointed arch surround that leads to a path along the outside of the church towards the rear.

The square tower has 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 contains a door detailed as the right lean-to gable. The left side of the first stage has three narrow lancet windows with leaded glass. The first stage rear is attached to the side aisle and the first stage right to the nave.

Between the first and second stages runs a projecting ashlar granite ogee string course with ashlar offsets above. All sides of the first stage have shallow rock-faced buttresses at each corner with ashlar offsets just before second floor level. The front, left, and rear sides each have two tall lancet windows; at the rear, where the tower meets the side aisle, the left window cill is raised to clear the aisle roof below. All windows have obscured diamond panes with lead cames. Above the lancets are single roundels with cinquefoil tracery and semicircular hood moulds.

An ogee moulded ashlar granite stringcourse 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 louvered lancet opening with deep splayed and stepped reveals and crocketted gablets above. The ashlar granite spire surmounting the stage has a splayed octagonal base, double lancet lucarnes to each side, and four bands of fish-scale decoration between base and top, crowned with a crocketted pinnacle and cast iron cross finial. The side towers terminate in octagonal, almost conical spires with stone finials.

Both side elevations of the nave are similar, each with five pairs of leaded lancet windows with sandstone trimmings and a continuous sandstone course at spring level. The aisle walls feature ashlar granite corbels and a window between offset buttresses. Where confessionals return below three windows on the right elevation and two on the left elevation, 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 the apse, forming a continuous unbroken wall to ground level.

The link to the Priory block is two storeyed, constructed of rock-faced granite blocks in regular courses with sandstone trimming and a natural slated pitched roof. Its ground floor aligns with the church ground floor, and its first floor sits just above the priory ground floor. The street-facing façade is gabled with ashlar copings. A sheeted timber door leads into the ground floor chapel and has a transom light with a moulded Tudor arch above. A window to the left is a 1/1 sliding sash with a similar head to the door. A sandstone band links both at arch spring level. The first floor features a central Gothic recess containing a pair of etched glass rectangular windows to the oratory, with a carved quatrefoil roundel above.

Abutting the rear wall is a lower one-storey annex containing the sacristy, with a pitched slate roof fitted with skylights and a canted end bay. Each side has a pair of rectangular windows with rectangular transoms above, fitted with iron security bars.

A flight of eight steps in a convex quadrant reveal leads up to the main entrance from the street, flanked by rock-faced retaining walls with ashlar copings supporting Gothic railings, which appear to be copies or replacements of the originals. Similar railings run along the front of the Priory. At the top of the steps are two cast iron lamp standards with modern globes. The area at the top is paved with additional steps leading up to the main and right side aisle entrances.

In the grounds of the park opposite stands a statue of Mary inscribed: "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."