Survey Data
Reg No
31305501
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social, Technical
Original Use
Church/chapel
In Use As
Church/chapel
Date
1940 - 1945
Coordinates
70252, 305057
Date Recorded
10/12/2010
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached nine-bay double-height Catholic church, designed 1941, built 1941-2; opened 1943, on a rectangular plan comprising eight-bay double-height nave opening into single-bay full-height chancel (south); single-bay single-storey gabled advanced porch to entrance (north) front. Renovated, ----, with sanctuary reordered. Pitched slate roofs including pitched (gabled) slate roof (porch), clay ridge tiles with Cross finials to apexes, and replacement uPVC rainwater goods on eaves boards on boxed rendered eaves. Rendered battered walls on battered base. Round-headed window openings with concrete sills, and concealed dressings framing one-over-one timber sash windows having stained glass margins. Round-headed "Trinity Window" (south) with concrete sill, and concealed dressings framing storm glazing over fixed-pane fittings having leaded stained glass panels. Square-headed door opening to entrance (north) front behind round-headed opening, concealed dressings having stepped reveals with hood moulding framing replacement glazed uPVC panelled double doors having overlight. Square-headed flanking window openings with concrete sills, and concealed dressings framing timber casement windows having stained glass margins. Round-headed "Trinity Window" (gable) with concrete sill, and concealed dressings framing one-over-one timber sash windows centred on two-over-one timber sash window having stained glass margins. Interior including vestibule (north); square-headed door opening into nave with glazed timber panelled double doors; full-height interior open into roof with arcaded choir gallery (north) in segmental-headed alcove, tiled central aisle between cruciform-detailed timber pews, Romanesque-style timber stations, part exposed strutted timber roof construction on "Cavetto"-detailed thumbnail beaded corbels with boarded or sheeted rafters on "Cavetto"-detailed timber cornice, and round-headed chancel arch framing mosaic tiled cut-veined Connemara marble stepped dais to sanctuary (south) reordered, ----, with replacement altar table below stained glass "Trinity Window" (----). Set in relandscaped grounds with rendered piers to perimeter having stepped capping supporting Cross finial-topped double gates.
Appraisal
A church erected to designs signed (1941) by Ralph Henry Byrne (1877-1946) of Suffolk Street, Dublin, representing an important component of the twentieth-century ecclesiastical heritage of Contae Mhaigh Eo [County Mayo] with the architectural value of the composition confirmed by such attributes as the elongated rectilinear plan form; the pronounced battered silhouette; the slender profile of the openings underpinning a streamlined Romanesque theme with the chancel defined by an elegant "Trinity Window"; and the high pitched roof. Having been well maintained, the form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior reordered (----) in accordance with the liturgical reforms sanctioned by the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican (1962-5) where an exposed timber roof construction, stalled under the Emergency Powers (Control of Timber) Order 1941 (Parliamentary Debates 1941), pinpoints the engineering or technical dexterity of a church making a pleasing visual statement in a rural street scene.