St Luke's C of I Church, Killeavy, Newry, Co Armagh

St Luke's Church of Ireland, Killeavy

St Luke's is a mid-19th-century Gothic style church, erected in 1831 and aligned north-west to south-east within a churchyard on the east side of Drumintee Road. The building is now derelict.

The church is constructed of wet-dashed rubble over a chamfered granite base course. The pitched roof of natural slate, in very poor condition, has granite skews to each gable. To the north-west gable is a bellcote of finely dressed granite ashlar with chamfered openings, supported on a pillow moulded corbel and topped by a moulded cornice and tapered octagonal finial. To the south-east gable is a two-staged raised granite gable apex with pitched copings. An advanced ashlar eaves course supports the remains of half-round metal rainwater goods. All door and window openings feature two-centred heads with finely dressed, splayed jambs and hooded drip moulds in granite. All openings are now sheeted over.

The north-west gable of the nave is abutted at its centre by a large castellated entrance porch with exposed right and left sections, each containing a tall narrow lancet. The entrance door on the north-west face is accessed by a single rounded step. The porch is flanked by two-stage granite buttresses with moulded cornices between stages; the lower stage is square in section, the upper stage octagonal and narrower. Both are surmounted by tapered octagonal finials rising above parapet level. The left and right cheeks each have a lancet window opening. At each angle where the porch joins the nave is a single-stage buttress with stepped copings. The north-west gable of the nave is flanked by buttresses detailed as those to the porch. The south-west and north-east elevations of the nave are identical, each with three lancets and a square metal ventilation grille beneath each one.

A chancel abuts the south-east gable, with exposed blank sections. The chancel roof is pitched natural slate, detailed as the main church, with skews and extended advanced eaves course forming a plain open pediment to the gable apex. Below are three lancets grouped together with cusped inset heads; the central lancet is taller. They are set in a reveal with stepped jambs. The left and right cheeks are each abutted by a lower lean-to with natural slate roof. The left lean-to has a window with a squat two-centred head in its left cheek; the right lean-to has only a door in its right cheek.

An 1837 Ordnance Survey Memoir describes the church as "a small and neat building without a spire. It is built of granite, a good deal of which is hewn. It measures 60ft by 30, and is capable of accommodating about 200"; it cost £1200 to erect. A survey slide from September 1989 shows the church had Y-tracery windows, all leaded and quarry glazed. The church was closed in the late 1960s.

The churchyard contains a number of 19th-century memorials, most enclosed by wrought iron railings on rubble stone plinth walls. At the north end stands a partially collapsed square rubble granite burial vault with finely dressed advanced granite copings. A slate memorial panel to its west face reads "Sacred to the memory of / the members of the / FOXHALL FAMILY / of Killeavy Castle". The churchyard contains a number of yew trees. Wrought iron gates to the road are hung from single-piece, square-sectioned, finely dressed granite pillars, with a random rubble wall to the road.