St Mary’s RC Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A freestanding, symmetrical double-height, Neo-Gothic style Catholic church built in 1862 on the site of an earlier church. Cruciform-plan comprising west-east oriented three-bay nave and two-bay transepts to north and south. Vestry/toilet block extension to north-east c1940. Located at the edge of a graveyard, to the eastern side of Forkhill Road, in the centre of Mullaghbawn village.

Pitched slate roof with black terracotta ridge tiles, gables topped by stone saddle coping terminating in kneeler stones having cusped detailing with profiled skew corbels. Stone celtic-style cross finials to all four gables. Plain, rendered chimney to southern pitch of western gable. Metal rainwater goods with decorative trefoil brackets to downpipes.
Walling is roughcast rendered and painted, with stepped, painted smooth rendered quoins to south and west elevations, straight quoins to north and east elevations, smooth rendered plinth.

Full-height gothic arched single windows to gables with lancet window openings to side walls, windows having stepped painted smooth render surrounds, hood moulds and flush chamfered sills; windows are leaded glass. Entrance doors having gothic arches, hood moulds and stepped painted surrounds formed of smooth render. Double-leafed timber sheet doors with gothic tracery tympana.

West elevation: Projecting gable with full height, six light window having Y-tracery and lattice panes containing stained-glass motifs. West elevation of transepts is two-bay with lancet-headed openings with lattice stained-glass windows and timber-sheeted doors.

North elevation generally as west elevation, with two-bay single-storey lean-to vestry/ toilet block extension to east left having stone gothic arched openings, square-headed door, and square-headed timber casement window with smooth render to tympana.

East elevation has full height gable, gothic-arched window opening with leaded-stained glass window. Transept to the right is abutted by lean-to vestry/toilet block extension. Extension comprises three gothic arched windows, smooth render surrounds, square-headed timber casement windows with smooth render to tympana. Single-bay two-storey lean-to south-east corner of transept and nave with timber sheeted door and plain glazed transom light. Opening at upper floor level above door with timber sheet shutter.

South elevation has projecting gabled bay with moulded-stone coping and kneelers. Stepped and straight smooth rendered quoins. Gothic-arched window with lattice stained-glass window.

Setting:

The church is set beside the Tullymacreeve Road and in the north-western corner of a churchyard that slopes gently down towards the Forkhill river to the east. The churchyard contains gravemarkers dating from the early 19th century to the present, including one that is signed by the celebrated stonemason, poet and scribe, Arthur Bennett (Art MacBionaid). There is a tarmac car park to the north and the churchyard is bounded at the roadside by a coursed granite rubblestone wall, (non-original), with stepped concrete section to south. The churchyard is accessed to south by a pair of modern steel gates on square piers with castellated coping.

Roof: Pitched natural slate
Walling: Painted roughcast
Windows: Timber with lattice leaded
RWG: Metal angular profile

Historical information

The church of St Mary at Mullaghbawn, was constructed in 1862, replacing an earlier chapel on the same site. A vestry/toilet block extension is shown by the fourth edition OS map of 1956-7.

Located close to the church, in MacSherry’s glen, is the site of a ‘mass garden’ where open air masses were celebrated during the time of suppression of Catholic worship under the penal laws. The mass garden may have influenced the location of the original church which is shown on the 1st edition OS map of 1835 captioned ‘R.C. Chapel’. The original church had a roughly cruciform plan, a variation of the traditional T-plan form of early Catholic chapels in Ireland. Dimensions for the earlier church are given in the Townland Valuation of the 1830s. It would appear that the nave of the church was 88 feet long and 25½ feet wide with a further 75 foot transept and a low extension to the eastern elevation (6 feet in height) of 16½x15½ feet. The main body of the church was 10 to 10½ feet in height to the eaves. The quality letter given by the valuator indicates that the church was considered to be not new but in sound order and in good repair and was constructed of stone/brick and lime with a slated roof.

An offer to finance the building of a new Catholic chapel at Forkhill by the local Rector, ‘an aggressive proselytiser’ was rejected by the congregation who raised the funds to build the church themselves. The fund raising effort was inaugurated by means of a charity sermon in 1857 and tenders were invited for the building of the walls in July 1861, with the foundation stone being laid in September. By March 1862 the new building was roofed and only required the interior to be completed. However, the building committee ran out of funds and the parish priest Father Mulligan was forced to appeal to ‘the people of Dundalk and other towns and districts’.

The new Catholic Church of Forkhill was dedicated on Sunday 19th October 1862 by the Archbishop of Armagh and the Lord Bishop of Down and Connor. Architect Richard Hynes of Newry, designed the church and was also the designer of Catholic churches at Bessbrook and Rostrevor. The new church replicated the cruciform plan of the original chapel.

The golden jubilee of the church, then known as St Mary’s in the Valley, was celebrated on 20th October 1912. Renovations of the church during its jubilee year were undertaken ‘at great cost’ tenders having been invited in April/May 1910 for ‘extension works including stonework, plastering, joinery etc’. Works consisted of two new galleries and ‘exterior treatment of the church’. These works included the crosses surmounting the church gables which are of granite quarried at Lislea and a wall covering of Portland cement with pebble inclusions from the Cooley peninsula. The cement quoins used granite sand from Shanroe quarries and the roof was decorated with a cast iron ridge crest bearing gilded trefoils.

The architect for the renovations was John F McGahon, of Dundalk and the contract was carried out by Bernard Duffy, also of Dundalk at a cost of £819. The congregation of nearly 800 families at this period, celebrated the church’s jubilee by lighting bonfires on the surrounding mountains, lighting up their houses and putting up triumphal arches in Mullaghbarn and Forkhill. A firework display lasting two hours was held in the old mass garden in MacSherry’s glen.

The church was subject to revaluation in 1933 and at this time the interior was assessed as containing ‘an altar of simple character’ and seating for 1500 on loose forms with backs. There were three galleries, one in the nave and two in the transepts (the transept galleries, added in 1912, have now gone) and hot water ran through pipes under iron gratings in the floor. A valuer’s plan of the building also gives dimensions and shows that the church was roughly the same size as the early church it replaced, although of considerably greater height. A small extension to the south-east corner is labelled a ‘heating chamber’. However, the vestry/toilet block extension is not shown on the 1930s valuation plan and may have been a later addition. Parish records indicate that renovation works were carried out at the church in the early 1940s and the vestry/toilet block extension may have been undertaken at this time.

The church contains a six light East window by Clokey that was installed in 1951, the donation of an emigrant to the US whose father hailed from Mullaghbawn. The window depicts the Assumption of Our Lady of Lourdes and Fatima.

The church was completely renovated ‘in line with modern liturgical needs’ between June 1981 and April 1982 at a cost of c£100,000. A window by McManus design was installed in 1982. Further renovations took place c2015.

St Mary’s is the burial site of Gaelic poet, scribe and stone mason Arthur Bennett (Art Mac Bionaid) of Ballykeel (1793-1879), whose headstone, which he carved himself, may be found in the graveyard. Bennett was one of the most competent and prolific scribes of Irish in the nineteenth century with particular interests in Irish history, lore, archaeology and the literature of his native area. He was considered a prominent Irish scholar in his lifetime and since his death has been assessed as the last of the school of South East Ulster Poets.

The churchyard also contains a grey marble tablet monument to the former parish priest the Rev Hugh Mulligan, who was instrumental in building the church and who died in 1878.

References:
Primary Sources:

1. PRONI OS/6/2/28/1 First Edition Six Inch OS map (1835)
2. PRONI VAL1/B/217 Townland Valuation, Barony of Upper Orier, Parish of Forkhill
3. Newry Examiner and Louth Advertiser, 3rd June 1857
4. Dundalk Democrat, 20 July 1861
5. PRONI OS/6/2/28/2 Second Edition Six Inch OS map (1862)
6. Tablet, 25th October 1862
7. Dublin Builder, Vol 4, 15th November 1862, p.296
8. PRONI OS/6/2/28/3 Third Edition Six Inch OS map (1906-7)
9. Irish Builder, Vol 52, 30th April 1910, p.285
10. Frontier Sentinel, 25th May 1912
11. Irish Weekly and Ulster Examiner, 2nd November 1912
12. PRONI VAL/3/D/2/6/Z/5 Newry No 2 Rural District, electoral division of Mullaghbane (1933-57)
13. PRONI CR2/15/2/6 Account book relating to renovation and decoration of St Mary’s Mullaghbawn (1940-41)
14. Dundalk Democrat, 25th August 1951
15. PRONI OS/6/2/28/4 Fourth Edition Six Inch OS map (1956-7)
16. Dundalk Democrat, 10th April 1982

Secondary Sources:

17. Madden, Kyla. ‘Forkhill Protestants and Forkhill Catholics, 1787-1858’ Liverpool: Liverpool University Press (2006), p.155
18. Mulligan, Kevin. ‘The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster: The Counties of Armagh, Cavan and Monaghan’, New Haven: Yale University Press (2013), p.493
Online Sources:
19. Dictionary of Irish Architects (www.dia.ie)
20. Dictionary of Irish Biography (www.dib.ie)
21. www.geograph.ie – H9918 Church of St Mary, Mullaghbawn, Co Armagh

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H+. Alterations enhancing the building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
V. Authorship
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

Double height rural Catholic church on a cruciform plan and in a simple neo-Gothic style. The building was constructed in 1862 with small toilet block/vestry extension added c.1940. Good survival of plan form and interior features, particularly timber truss roof and Clokey window. Interior has been somewhat modified over several phases of renovation, but retains its historic form.