St MacCartans RC Church, Loughinisland Road, Loughinisland, Tievenadarragh, Downpatrick, Co Down, BT30 8PZ

St MacCartain's RC Church

A simple gabled cruciform Roman Catholic church built in 1787 by Reverend Patrick MacCartan, located on the south side of Loughinisland Road to the west of the small hamlet of Loughinisland, approximately 4.5 miles west of Downpatrick.

The church is constructed as a cruciform plan with three principal wings (northeast, northwest, and southeast) of equal length, and a much shorter southwest chancel wing added by 1858. The building is finished in dry dash render.

The front entrance is set within a gabled porch addition of circa 1987 located in the northeast face. The pointed arch doorway has sandstone dressings with in-and-out quoins on the reveals and a moulded dripstone to the head. The timber-sheeted door has a carved timber panel filling the tympanum. The porch gable is surmounted by a small stone cross. The sides of the porch each contain a small pointed arch window with plain smooth cement surrounds.

The main northeast gable is topped by a bell-cote. The gables of the northwest and southeast transepts each have a Y-tracery gothic window over a recessed doorway fitted with modern glazed doors, with a small cross mounted on the apex of each gable. The southeast gable has a short flight of stairs rising to a small landing with a modern steel handrail. The side walls of the three principal wings each contain two Y-tracery gothic windows with smooth cement surrounds, all currently covered with polycarbonate plastic sheeting. The southwest chancel wing's side walls each have a pointed arch window. The gable has three pointed arch windows, the centre one being tallest, with a small lean-to vestry extension of circa 1987 attached to its lower section. The southeast face is blank; the southwest face has three evenly spaced modern windows; the northwest face has a pointed arch headed doorway with a decorated date panel of 1787 above it (this panel appears to have been relocated from elsewhere on the façade).

The roof is covered in Bangor blue slate with painted barge boards and slight eave overhangs. At the intersection of the cruciform roofs stands a lead fleche with a four-sided pyramidal cap and battered base, featuring a pointed arch recess to each side.

The building was documented on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834 in essentially its original form, without the porch, chancel, or vestry extensions. The 1836 Ordnance Survey Memoirs recorded that it contained 102 seats capable of accommodating six individuals each, giving a total capacity of 612, with a stone-paved floor and noted as being in very good repair. By 1858, both a porch and the short chancel wing had been added, creating the present uneven cruciform plan. The church remained in this configuration until 1986–87, when the lean-to vestry was added and the porch enlarged. Internally, a ceiling was inserted in 1906 but was removed in 1987, exposing the trusses again. Glazed internal porches were also added in 1987.

The building is not of special architectural interest.