St Colman’s RC Church, Attical, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4SY

St Colman's Roman Catholic Church, Attical, Kilkeel, is a modest Gothic style church with a six-bay gabled nave aligned north-south with the altar on the north wall. The building comprises a hipped canted sanctuary, a four-bay gabled aisle on the north side, a central gabled entrance porch on the south side, and a gabled baptistery to the west end. A flat-roofed sacristy is attached to the north-east corner.

The pitched natural slate roof features a ridge of red clay with dogtooth cresting to the nave and plain ridges to the north aisle. The gables are raised and coped in granite with bracketed and canted kneelers at the eaves and a cruciform stone finial at the ridge to the east gable. The west gable of the nave carries an ashlar granite gabled bellcote of similar design. The bell is rung by an external cable on the west wall. The sanctuary has lead hips and an iron cruciform finial. The eaves have a projecting masonry course. Rainwater gutters and rectangular downpipes are seamless aluminium of ogee profile. Walls have a battered base approximately 0.75 metres high and are smooth plastered with ashlar lining.

The south wall serves as the main entrance façade. Windows flanking the entrance porch are Gothic shaped lancets with granite flush cills and stepped dressings to the jambs in unpainted render with chamfered arrises. The porch and baptistery employ small-scale versions of the main building's detailing. Windows in the flanks of the porch and baptistery have square granite heads and cills with stepped rendered jambs. Buttresses of strap-pointed ashlar granite are set at right angles on the corners of the porch and baptistery, with one per bay centred between the windows; the caps are pitched and the bases are battered. A painted plaster crucifix is set into a blind arch in the baptistery gable.

The north aisle has plain rendered walls with detailing similar to the main building. A Gothic headed lancet is positioned on the north wall, and a blind quatrefoil appears high in the west gable wall. A confessional projects from the centre two bays of the north wall with a flat roof.

The gabled entrance porch features a rounded Gothic headed arch containing diagonally sheeted double doors, approached by five granite steps with a granite threshold.

The sacristy appears to be of recent construction with a flat asphalt roof projecting over plain rendered walls. Windows are modern rectangular top-hung timber casements fitted with galvanised security grills. The door is modern flush timber painted, accessed by four steps and enclosed by a low rendered wall.

Three tall Gothic lancets with plain render surrounds occupy the west gable. All windows throughout the church are fitted with stained and coloured glass quarries. The sanctuary has a single Gothic headed lancet in each of the walls parallel to the nave; otherwise the walls are blank.

The churchyard is enclosed by a low granite wall of squared quarry-faced rubble coped with concrete. The ground falls away on the north side, raising the plinth wall on its outer face. Two gateways provide access. The gateway leading to the entrance porch has square ashlar granite piers rising three courses above the wall with stop-chamfered arrises and flush chamfered tops; the gates are wrought iron with cast iron details. The second gateway is constructed of quarry-faced blocks with similar caps.