St Mary's RC Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

St Mary’s, Bannagh is a small rural RC church constructed prior to the 1830’s. The floor plan is a rectangular nave aligned almost E - W with a porch added at the West end of the southern side and a sacristy added at the East end. It is located on a minor road a short distance north of the A35 - two miles NW of Kesh.

The South elevation has three lancet windows evenly spaced to the right of a single storey porch. The lancets have small rectangular leaded lights of roughcast green glass with narrower margin panes - openings have narrow smooth plasters bands. The bottom two rows are steel opening lights.
The porch has roughcast render and a smooth render plinth - as the main walls - with a taller smooth rendered breakfront surmounted by a painted stone cross. It has a flat roof complete with parapets topped with large painted copings. Painted vertically sheeted double entrance doors are set in a stepped opening. It is thought that the porch was added in 1911-12. Above it in the nave wall is an infilled pointed arch opening that probably housed the original entrance door.

West elevation is blind with painted stone kneelers at each side of the gable - which rises above the roof line and is coped, with a stone cross at the ridge line.

North elevation has four evenly spaced lancet windows as the South elevation.

East elevation is blind except for a small single storey sacristy probably added as part of the 1911 alterations and entered from the South side through a vertically sheeted door. It has roughcast render, flush timber eaves boards and a uPVC picture window in the East gable. The nave gable, above, has stone kneelers and coping stones as the West gable but with the addition of an external chimney breast and a covered smoke stack supporting a stone cross.

Setting:
Bannagh church sits within a grassed graveyard with hedged boundaries on the three sides away from the road. On the road side, modern galvanised steel entrance gates - vehicular and separate pedestrian, are supported on square pillars with pyramidal caps. Either side is roughcast rendered walling which runs the whole length of the roadside - with smooth rendered bands and a shaped coping. It complements the church and was probably constructed in 1911.
Bannagh National School was located within the graveyard close to the boundary wall and was demolished soon after its closure in 1972. 50m to the South is Bannagh Community Centre that was refurbished in 1996 - rendered with fibre cement slated roof and uPVC windows. The wider
setting is entirely rural comprising agricultural farmland.

Materials:

Walling: painted roughcast render with smooth render plinth
RWG: Ogee uPVC gutters and uPVC downpipes except on the porch where they are cast iron.
Roof: fibre cement slates
Windows: Fixed leaded lights except in the sacristy

Historical information

An ‘RC Chapel’ of similar footprint to that of today is shown on the OS map of 1835. Unfortunately there is no mention of this building in the OS Memoirs of the previous year, but it is recorded in the contemporary valuation as an ‘old’ thatched structure (grade 2C) measuring 63ft x 21½ x 7. The continuity in terms of plan, the overall single-storey simplicity of the building and the lack of evidence to suggest major reconstruction, all suggest that - apart from its roof - the present church is the same building noted in the 1830s.
The date of construction and the authorship are both uncertain. With the relaxation of the Penal Laws in the final decades of the 18th century there was a large increase in the establishment of chapels / mass houses particularly in rural areas. Most of these were of the simple rectangular barn type, frequently thatched and usually the work of a skilled builder rather than an architect. Thus, given the fact that this chapel was viewed as old in the 1830s it is possible that it dates from the late 1700s, and as such is likely to be the work of a local builder.
The revised OS map of 1856 shows no change to both the building and its setting. In 1870 a small National Schoolhouse (‘Bannagh School’) was erected in the SW corner of the chapel grounds, and by 1905 the small vestry extension had been added to the chapel itself. In 1911-12 ‘alterations and additions’ were carried out to the building to plans by architect William Alphonsus Scott of Dublin. It is unclear what these entailed, but it is probable that the present roof, porch and bellcote are of this period, although (oddly) the porch is it not shown on any OS map prior to at least 1965. There appear to have been no major alterations to the building post-1912, the most significant change taking place within the wider setting, with the demolition of Bannagh School sometime after its closure in 1972.
Of note within the surrounding graveyard is the grave of Corporal Michael Slevin (1826-1902), who was awarded the VC for his exploits in the taking of Fort Jhansi, during the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58.

References – Primary sources
1 OS Memoirs...Vol.14, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB, 1992) (1834)
2 PRONI VAL1B/416A-B (1834)
3 PRONI OS6/4/5/1 (1835)
4 PRONI OS6/4/5/2 (1856)
5 PRONI OS6/4/5/3 (1905)
6 OSNI OS sheet 153:4 (1965)

Secondary sources – websites
1 Dictionary of Irish Architects http://www.dia.ie/works/view/14945 [accessed 30 October 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 Mary’s, Bannagh is a small rendered rectangular RC church, located off the A35 - two miles NW of Kesh. Constructed prior to 1830 and possibly in the eighteenth century, thus preceding the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829. It was refurbished in 1911 - 12 when the slated roof probably replaced an earlier thatched one and the porch and sacristy were added. Bannagh church has not been altered since this time and these early twentieth century alterations do not detract from its architectural interest. Unfortunately the small National School set within the graveyard was demolished in the 1970’s, but the church hall still remains and together, the church and hall are important to the local community. Internally the fine fittings, particular the survival of the Gothic Revival altar, reredos and altar rails contribute to this early church’s interest as does its unspoiled rural setting.