St Lasir's Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

St Lasir’s church is a small rural RC church constructed in 1874 which replaced an earlier thatched mass house that stood on the same site. It is located at the side of the Marble Arch Road 4 miles SW of Belcoo. Rectangular on plan with a chancel, sacristy and free standing steel bell-tower.

The nave has a double pitch natural slate roof and the entrance gable faces SE. Walls are painted smooth render with a small projecting plinth. The entrance gable has a double boarded door in a central poonted arch with a lancet window either side. The windows have small diamond patterned cast iron windows with margined panes and painted stone sills. Above the door is a stone shield with the inscription - ERECTED BY REV J CLEARY P.P. 1874, Gable has simple stone skews surmounted by a wrought iron cross.

South West elevation has 4 lancet windows with cast iron windows as before.

NW gable is blind but has a chancel attached with blind side walls and a large pointed arch window containing a painted timber window with intersecting glazing bars. Both nave and chancel gables have raised stone skews as the SE gable.

NE elevation has four lancet windows as the SW elevation. It also has a projecting sacristy, with double pitched roof, detailed as the main body of the church, which wraps around the junction of the nave and chancel. Its NW elevation has a 6/6 painted timber sliding sash window.

Setting:
St Lasir’s has an unspoiled rural
setting with extensive views across farmland to hills on all sides. The church grounds are entered from Marble Arch Road through modern wrought iron gates supported on square rendered pillars with original painted stone pyramidal stone caps. The boundary to the road has modern steel railings set on rendered walling between regularly spaced rendered columns. Facing the main entrance to the church is a 6m high steel bell-tower complete with bell. The tower is constructed from steel angle sections bolted together and sits on a raised concrete podium. Accessed through the same entrance gates is a 1960’s (?) unpainted cement rendered caretaker’s house - 2 storey high with fibre cement roof covering and uPVC windows and door. Also to the NE and set close to the church is a large single storey corrugated iron shed that belongs to the house. The church site is divided from the house by a low modern timber fence. A narrow tarmac path surrounds the church - otherwise the site is grassed. To the rear of the chancel is a random rubble stone boundary wall separating the church grounds from a small stream that runs under the Marble Arch Road.

Materials:
Walls: Smooth render lined and painted
Windows: Cast iron
Roof: Natural slate
RWGoods Cast iron

Historical information

This RC church was built in 1874, replacing a pre-1835 mass house which stood on a similar alignment (see below). It is shown as present on the OS map of 1906. As the plaque over the entrance states, the church was built by Reverend James Cleary, who served as Parish Priest of Killesher from 1866 to 1875. The authorship is uncertain, the overall simplicity suggesting (perhaps) the hand of a competent builder rather than an architect.

The building appears to have experienced no major changes since its construction, and although it has been suggested that the chancel may be a later addition, there appears to be no evidence to substantiate this. There have been several internal alterations, however. The present confessional and the fireplace in the vestry look to be of c.1900-10, the stained glass window to the chancel (by Clokey of Belfast) is of 1944 - a donation of the Gilmurray family, the Stations of the Cross are modern replacements for the original framed images and the altar (designed by Michael Donnelly and made by O’Hara’s of Sligo) is post c.1965. Repairs carried out in 1938 by architects James Donnelly & Sons of Enniskillen may have entailed other changes, but it is not clear what these actually amounted to. Within the grounds, the freestanding bell ‘tower’ to the E of the church was erected at some point after 1931, the year in which the bell itself (which is dated 1896 and came from the Holywell Church at Belcoo) was presented to the congregation, and the present sexton’s house seems to be of the late 1960s or 1970s. The latter is shown on the OS map of 1984, but the former only appears for the first time on that of 1991.
The date of the original mass house is not known, but it is likely to have been of the late 1700s. It is shown on the OS map of 1835 as a rectangular block. Both it and its counterpart at Derrylester TD are referred to in the contemporary OS Memoirs as ‘thatched structures more like long barns more than anything else’, with the building at this site able to ‘accommodate about 800 persons standing’. In the valuation of the following year the dimensions are recorded as 86ft x 23 x 10, with two smaller accompanying structures noted as a thatched ‘sexton’s dwelling’ of 23 x 13 x 6 and a stable of 14 x 12 x 6. These were located along the roadside to the immediate S of the mass house and were demolished at some point prior to 1857. The 1906 OS map shows a small building to N of the present church and another to the W, the former possibly another residence for the sexton.

According to the Killesher parish website (see refs) the church and the nearby holywell are both dedicated to St. Lasir; however the church is referred to as ‘St. Patrick’s’ on successive OS maps from 1906 onwards and the SMR entry for the well (quoting from the aforementioned OS Memoirs) states that it is dedicated to St. Patrick.

References – Primary sources
1 PRONI OS6/4/32/1 (1835)
2 OS Memoirs...Vol.14, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB, 1992), p.83 (1835)
3 PRONI VAL1B/43 (1836)
4 PRONI OS6/4/32/2 (1857)
5 PRONI OS6/4/32/3 (1907)
6 OSNI OS sheet 243:3 (1984, 1991)

Secondary sources
1 Article on the history of ‘St. Lasir’s Church, Killesher’, on HED file [HB12.09.013]

Secondary sources – websites
1 HED SM7 FERM 243:13
2 http://www.kinawleykillesherparish.com/index.php/about [accessed 16 Oct 2015]

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

Evaluation

St Lasir’s church is a small rural RC church constructed in 1874 which replaced an earlier thatched mass house that stood on the same site. It is located at the side of the Marble Arch Road 4 miles SW of Belcoo. St Lasir’s is substantially unchanged from its original design apart from some re-ordering in the 1970’s which adds another layer of history. It has very fine diamond patterned cast iron windows on either side of the nave. Whilst set close to the road and with an adjacent 1960’s caretaker’s house, it has otherwise an expansive rural setting with views to distant hills. St Lasir’s is important to the local community and represents a simple church type that is at the core of rural life in Fermanagh, but that may soon become less common due to falling congregations and more centralised centres of worship.