ST. PATRICK'S R C CHURCH

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A mid-19th century local Parish Church, dedicated to St. Patrick, painted roughcast exterior with corner buttresses and Sandstone stone dressings with a small extension to the SW side containing a rear entrance porch; built 1865 to the designs of an unknown architect. The current building was erected on the same site as a pre-Reformation Church and an early-19th century chapel which had been erected on the same site between 1804 and 1814. The church underwent a major renovation in 2008-09, carried out in phases which included: Phase 1 - unearthing of the original floor, stripping of all interior and exterior plaster, and the construction of a new Sacristy and Confessional rooms, Phase 2 - the replacement of the church's roof and timbers, the installation of a new gallery and the reconstruction of its belfry, Phase 3 - internal alteration including new timber pews, the overhaul of the buildings lighting and sound systems and the addition of new ornamentation and church features such as a new altar, priests chair and Ambo. At this time additional work was carried out to the church’s Stations of the Cross (originally installed in the 1950s) and to the 14 stained glass windows (which were removed and fully restored by the Art Glass Company of Derry. The single-storey vestry to the South side had been constructed c. 1904. The church continues to be utilised as the main Roman Catholic house of worship in Cushendun. Situated within its own churchyard with burial grounds to each side containing many tombstones and mature yew trees. The site is bounded by a low stone wall having two re-built rendered pillars with pyramidal caps to either side of a pair of decorative iron pedestrian gates accessed from the Glendun Road. Located North of the Village of Cushendun.

Pitched natural slate roof has black clay ridge tiles; gables have raised skews with stone copings, kneeler stones and stone cross finials to apse end. Moulded cast-aluminium gutters discharging to circular cast-aluminium downpipes throughout. Lead valleys set behind raised gables with sandstone coping to skews.

Painted roughcast walling with Sandstone corner buttresses and dressings including stepped quoins, window and door surrounds. All set on a slightly projecting rendered plinth. Windows are generally of Gothic trefoil set in sandstone with stained glass designs.

North-east (principal) elevation set behind cast-iron railings overlooking graveyard; elevation comprises a gable-end containing a pointed Gothic arch doorway having a pair of vertically sheeted timber doors with vision panels; triple lancet Gothic window above set in plate-tracery stonework, lancets have a trefoil inset; gable end has a finial to a stone bell-cote containing a rectangular shaped date stone with the letters inscripted above A.D 1865; there is an inscription over engraved in the stone bell-cote 'DEDICATED TO ST. PATRICK'.

South-east elevation overlooks burial grounds; main elevation contains a four-bay nave having tall narrow Gothic pointed single lancet windows set in stone surrounds with glazing bars and stained glass windows; part exposed elarlier Romanesque arch to side of one of the windows; main elevation is abutted to the left side by a projecting single-storey annex containing a small square headed window opening having a stone surround and cathedral squares; square headed doorway to the left of window has a render band surround and a vertically sheeted timber door with a ventilated panel, two steps up from the pavement level; to the right side of the main elevation there is a small Gothic pointed arched single lancet window containing a stained glass design.

South-west elevation overlooks burial grounds; annex elevation contains corner buttress to left side, lean-to extension with stone quoins to right side; central triple lancet Gothic window set in plate-tracery stonework, lancets have a trefoil inset; gable has a stone cross at the apex above circular ventilation grill with sandstone surround. Gable to main elevation behind contains stone cross to apex above circular ventilation grill with sandstone surround.

North-west elevation is set back behind graveyard overlooking the Glendun Road containing a four-bay nave having tall narrow Gothic pointed single lancet windows set in stone surrounds with glazing bars and stained glass windows; adjoining annex has a semicircular arched window set in plate-tracery stonework, double lancets have a trefoil inset with stained glass windows; main elevation and annex has corner buttresses with stone quoins above.

Setting:
Situated within its own churchyard with burial grounds to each side containing many tombstones and mature yew trees. The site is bounded by a low stone wall having two re-built rendered pillars with pyramidal caps to either side of a pair of decorative iron pedestrian gates accessed from the Glendun Road. Located North of the Village of Cushendun.

Materials:
Roof: Natural Slate
RWG: Cast-aluminium
Walling: Painted roughcast /sandstone ashlar
Windows: Cathedral Squares / Stained glass.

Historical information

St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, a mid-19th century chapel located in the townland of Ardicoan and consisting of a nave and chancel, was constructed in 1865. The current building was erected on the same site as a pre-Reformation church and an early-19th century chapel which had been erected on the same site between 1804 and 1814 (see ANT: 015:009). O’Laverty’s An historical account of the Diocese of Down and Connor (1887) records that during the Penal years Mass in the Cushendun area was celebrated at the ancient graveyard of Killowen and at ‘an altar built of dry stonework at the margin of Craigagh wood in Inispollan.’ This altar (known as the Craigagh Altar – see ANT: 015:008) is located to the north-west of St. Patrick’s Church and is traditionally believed to have been brought to the site in c. 1780 from a ruined church in Scotland by a trader named O’Neill. O’Laverty records that the altar was ‘an object of great veneration among the people [and] has on it a slab on which is beautifully carved a Crucifix together with some inscription now illegible’ (O’Laverty; NIEA Sites & Monuments Record).

O’Laverty records that the chapel of 1804-14 was constructed on the ancient foundations of the church of Inispollan, an early-Christian site that has been traditionally linked with St. Patrick but which fell into disuse and a state of ruin following the reformation. The early-19th century Roman Catholic chapel was erected at the initiative of the parish priest, Father Brennan, who commenced the construction of the building in 1804. O’Laverty states that the building was completed in ‘about ten years’ although the chapel was not consecrated for another 25 years. The Most Reverent Cornelius Denvir (1791-1865), the Lord Bishop of Down and Connor, consecrated the chapel ‘under the invocation of Saint Columba’ on 2nd August 1840. The chapel was first recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map (1832) which depicted the building as a simple rectangular-shaped structure occupying the exact location of the current St. Patrick’s Church. The chapel was recorded in more detail on the second edition Ordnance Survey map (1857) which showed that the building possessed a projecting porch or transept on its south side. The contemporary Ordnance Survey Memoirs (1835) described the unconsecrated chapel as ‘a very plain building, 52ft long by 30ft wide [that] could accommodate about 400 persons.’ The Townland Valuations (1834) set the rateable value of the original chapel at £6 (OSM; O’Laverty).

The original chapel was slightly increased in value to £6 and 10 shillings under Griffith’s Valuation (1859) and continued to stand on the site until 1865 when the parish priest, Father Phelan, had the building reconstructed. The church’s nave was extended with the addition of a chancel and the installation of a belfry (the date 1865 is inscribed on the belfry). The completed church was dedicated by the Most Reverence Patrick Dorrian (1814-85), the new Lord Bishop of Down and Connor, with the dedication sermon preached by Fr. Charles McAuley of Maynooth. Despite the reconstruction, the site continued to be value at £6 and 10 shillings under the Annual Revisions between 1864 and 1929. O’Laverty states that the church was commonly known as the Church of Cushendun, but the building was recorded as St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church by at least the turn of the 20th century. The building was depicted along its current layout on the County Series Ordnance Survey map which shows that the single-storey vestry had been constructed to the south side of the church by at least 1904 (O’Laverty).

The church’s website notes that five of the building’s stained glass windows (located in the Sanctuary) were installed in the 1930s and were designed by Mayer & Co. Of Munich, an internationally famous stained glass design and manufacturing company that were popular in Europe throughout the late-19th and early-20th century and were the chief providers of stained glass to the Catholic Church during that period. Mayer & Co. Were an extremely popular firm in Ireland with the Dictionary of Irish Architects recording that the firm carried out at least 70 contracts on the island between 1870 and the 1920s for both the Church of Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church. Nine additional stained glass windows (plainer and arranged throughout the church) were installed in the 1950s by Daniel Braniff’s studio in Belfast (St. Patrick’s Church website; DIA). The total rateable value of St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church stood at £34 by the end of the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956-72).

In 1972 the UAHS Guide for the Glens of Antrim described St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church in the following terms: ‘A very pleasant very modest country chapel, on the site of a much earlier church, set in an old graveyard with many tombstones and mature yew trees. The exterior is of cream painted roughcast, with corner buttresses, pointed door and windows of shallow trefoil shape. Inside there is a raked gallery. The high altar has rather a fine white marble retable of the death of St. Patrick’ (UAHS Guide). St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church was listed in 1980. The church underwent a major renovation in 2008-09 which cost £980,000 and was carried out in phases. Phase 1 of the renovation involved the unearthing of the original floor the stripping of all internal and exterior plaster, and the construction of the new Sacristy and Confessional rooms. Phase 2 included the replacement of the church’s roof and timbers, the installation of a new gallery and the reconstruction of its belfry (which had become unstable). Phases 3 and included mostly internal alterations such as the installation of new pews, the overhaul of the building’s lighting and sound systems and the additional of new ornamentation and church features including a new altar, priest’s chair and Ambo. Additional work was carried out to the church’s Stations of the Cross (which were installed in the 1950s) and to the 14 stained glass windows (which were removed and restored by the Art Glass company in Derry). St. Patrick’s Church continues to be utilised as the main Roman Catholic house of worship in Cushendun and is the only example of a church in the Diocese of Down and Connor to have been constructed on a pre-Reformation site.

References

Primary Sources
1. PRONI OS/6/1/15/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1832)
2. PRONI OS/6/1/15/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1857)
3. PRONI OS/6/1/15/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1903-04)
4. PRONI OS/6/1/15/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1922)
5. PRONI OS/10/1/15/5/1 – County Series Ordnance Survey Map (1904)
6. PRONI VAL/1/A/1/15 – Townland Valuations Map (c. 1830)
7. PRONI VAL/1/B/133 – Townland Valuations (1834)
8. PRONI VAL/2/B/1/39 – Griffith’s Valuation (1859)
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/2/14A-E – Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
10. PRONI VAL/12/E/25/1 – Annual Revisions Town Plan (c. 1909-c. 1935)
11. PRONI VAL/4/B/1/10 – Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956-72)
12. Ordnance Survey Memoirs: Co. Antrim (1835)
13. Lewis’ Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837)
14. Ulster Town Directories (1861-1918)
15. An historical account of the Diocese of Down and Connor (1887)
16. First Survey Record – HB05/03/028 (1971)
17. NIEA HB Record – HB05/03/028
18. NIEA Sites & Monuments Record - ANT: 015/008

Secondary Sources
1. Brett, C. E. B., ‘List of historic buildings, groups of buildings and areas of architectural importance in the Glens of Antrim’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1972.

Online Resources
1. Dictionary of Irish Architects - http:// www.dia.ie/
2. St. Patrick’s Church website - http:// www.cushendunweb.co.uk/St%20Patricks/stpatshome.htm

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A mid-19th century local Parish Church, dedicated to St. Patrick, painted roughcast exterior with corner buttresses and Sandstone stone dressings with a small extension to the SW side containing a rear entrance porch; built 1865 to the designs of an unknown architect. The current building was erected on the same site as a pre-Reformation Church and an early-19th century chapel which had been erected on the same site between 1804 and 1814. The church underwent a major renovation in 2008-09. At this time additional work was carried out to the church’s Stations of the Cross (originally installed in the 1950s) and to the 14 stained glass windows (which were removed and fully restored by the Art Glass Company of Derry). Rectangular plan-form with a single-storey vestry to the South side, constructed c. 1904. The exterior is well detailed consistent for its time and style. St. Patrick's Church continues to be utilised as the main Roman Catholic house of worship in Cushendun. Situated within its own churchyard with burial grounds to each side containing many tombstones and mature yew trees. The site is bounded by a low stone wall having two re-built rendered pillars with pyramidal caps to either side of a pair of replacement decorative iron pedestrian gates accessed from the Glendun Road.