St Patrick’s R.C. Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

An aisled nave church with round apsidal end, gabled west front with natural slated roofs, clerestorey and faced with sandstone.

The west front has a high nave defined by shouldered buttresses on either side with 3 separate pointed doors forming the principal entrance, each with moulded label moulding and stop. Above there is a straight stringcourse between buttresses forming the cills of two tall two light lancets with tracery and centrally over in the gable apex a large sexfoil. On either side of the nave gable the gable aisles have single large two light pointed lancets with quatrefoil and label moulding. Shouldered buttresses define the corners. There are stone barges with pronounced gabled kneelers.

The north façade is 7 bays long, each end bay of lesser width that the others and the semi-circular apse of the nave projects beyond. Each bay is defined by shouldered buttresses of which 3 are of greater depth. In the 2nd bay from the W there is a small N gabled porch with central pointed doors and 2 small lancets each on the flanking walls. Each of the narrower end bays has a single lancet while the others have pairs. Above the aisle roof the clearstorey is punctuated with 2 quatrefoils in each bay.

The east façade is dominated by the semi-circular sanctuary end articulated with 5 slim tall lancets with cills at high level. The roof slating of the nave roof is neatly curved with Welsh slates. The aisles terminate as the W end but on the S side a new large single storey L plan extension has been added. This replaced a small gabled sacristy matching the width of the last bay of the S aisle.

The South façade more or less repeats the N side with no porch and the projecting new sacristy complex already mentioned. A secondary entrance has also been formed in the angle of the addition.

The extension, completed in 1999, is L plan wrapping round the S E end but only connected at the original sacristy position. Its design has been sympathetically handled with the motif of the apsidal nave repeated on the N gable with a curious cylindrical lantern lighting a sacramental chapel.

The walls of the church are faced with rubble sandstone with neat ashlar sandstone trim to openings. Several of the label mouldings end in sculpted stops, some heads, some rosettes. The nave roof has a crested ridge and the decorative finial over the apse roof apex is missing. Rainwater goods are in cast iron.

St Patrick’s Church, Dungiven enjoys a pleasant and landscaped site at the S E end of Dungiven town, on the perimeter of the town’s development and not far from the previous church of 1819. It is set back from the side of the Glenshane Road (Chapel Road) with random rubble stone boundary wall and pleasing modern lych gate. Behind this is a sweep of lawn interspersed with trees and shrubs and a curving entrance avenue leading to the church entrance portal with the graveyard behind the church. There is a well filled graveyard with some substantial grave monuments and in a central position a large bronze bell on an inappropriate steel frame.

Historical information

Father Daniel Mooney, a professor from the Irish College, Paris, was appointed parish priest of Dungiven in 1868 and determined to replace the former church across the road and a little to the east. He obtained a plot of ground from the Ogilby family for a church and graveyard, situated not far from the mediaeval Augustinian priory. He died in 1876 before the church foundations were cut and is buried in the graveyard, his monument bears the following inscription:

“ ……… a priest of great zeal and rare powers of eloquence having procured this cemetery he expressed a wish to be buried in it amongst his people”.

His successor, Father Michael Tracey, proceeded with the project but not in accordance with the design published in the Irish Builder of 1st July, 1877. That design was in the Romanesque style of architecture with nave, transepts, square chancel, N W tower and porches tucked in the angles of nave and transepts and a principal entrance under the tower. Father Tracey had been administrator in the recently opened St Eugene’s Cathedral (1873) where O’Neill and Byrne were architects for the parochial house. He appears to have favoured a middle Gothic style with French overtures. The foundation stone ceremony took place on 16th June 1883 and a scroll of parchment placed under the stone reading “The Rev. Michael Tracey …… placed here the foundation stone of this church …… The architects were John O’Neill and Charles McCarthy, the builder John McNally …………”

John O’Neill had died at the beginning of the previous month and J J McCarthy’s son Charles was engaged to supervise the work. However, when the dedication took place on 12th October 1884, Mortimer H Thompson of Belfast was credited in the Londonderry Journal with the supervision. Thompson had taken over O’Neill’s practice in Belfast in 1884, while W H Byrne continued to practice from the Dublin office.

Father Edward Loughrey, whose sister Nancy married John Valentine Hogan, sculptor, was the next parish priest 1890 – 1915. He moved the old mass stone from Cashel, where the 1st post Plantation Catholic church was built in the parish, to a position on the north side of the present church. He carried out some improvements to the church in 1892, probably the extended buttresses on the N wall.

In 1965 substantial alterations changed the sanctuary and the west front. The latter had 2 doors added, on either side of the single entrance door in matching neo-gothic style. The former handsome decorative treatment of the apse was removed and replaced with marble slabs. The former alterpiece and reredos were discarded for a marble ensemble. This work was the gift of Mr Matthew McCloskey, American millionaire, former American ambassador to Eire and a native of the Dungiven parish. The parish priest of the time was Father Hugh Conway who appointed Malachy Fitzpatrick as architect.

More recently, susbstantial additions have been made to the church without interfering with the general surviving form of O’Neill’s design. The additions, in single storey , contain new sacristies, sacramental chapel and meeting rooms. They have been handled in a restrained design with materials sympathetic to the church and are located to the S E corner. Architects were F M Corr & Assocaites and the work completed in 1999.

There is also in the middle of the graveyard a fine large bronze bell supported on an ungainly steel frame and inscribed: Church of St Patrick, Gillett & Johnson 1934.

The 1st Survey describes the building thus “late c19. A church consisting of nave, 2 aisles and apsidal chancel, constructed of snecked hammer-dressed sandstone with slated roof. The interior of the church is rendered. The aisles are lighted by paired cusped-leaded light windows, clearstorey windows are quatrefoil in shape. Triple entrances in 2 centre arched openings have 2, 2 light windows and multifoil oculus over. One aisle wall is supported by 2 stage buttresses. Circular columns support 2 centre arches in the interior, the ceiling is coffered and there is marble panelling in the chancel with mosaic enrichment on flanking walls. There are c19 and 20c memorials in the graveyard, a large Victorian style monument in memory of Hugh McCloskey and a bell on an iron support”.

P Haughey 1984 – Repairs
F M Corr 1996 – Erection of single storey extension listed 1974

References

Primary Sources
Londonderry Journal October 1884

Secondary Sources
E Daly & K Devlin The Clergy of the Diocese of Derry – An Index p. 79, 122, 157
Bunn Dungiven Days, 1978 p41
J J Tracey John O’Neill and O’Neill and Byrne, Architects 1862-83 Vol I
unpublished dissertation, Queens University p 194, 195, 196 ill. 38, 83, 84, 85, 86,
A Rowan The Buildings of Ireland, North West Ulster p 266.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
V. Authorship
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

A Frenchified neo-gothic style Catholic Church designed by John O’Neill, described by A Rowan as Ulster’s Pugin, with a lofty nave interior, somewhat spoiled by late alterations. The fine nave is typical of the building type with lean to aisles and good materials used externally. Substantial soft lanscaping with trees,has been retained, the carpark being across the road. Itenjoys a fine setting at the SE end of Dungiven town. However given that it is an altered example of a type of which there are many unaltered examples the B2 grade is considered appropriate.