Survey Data
Reg No
31307029
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Original Use
Church/chapel
Historical Use
Church hall/parish hall
In Use As
Museum/gallery
Date
1800 - 1838
Coordinates
125858, 297467
Date Recorded
10/11/2010
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three-bay double-height Catholic chapel, extant 1838, on a T-shaped plan comprising two-bay double-height nave opening into single-bay (single-bay deep) double-height transepts centred on chancel to crossing (east). Closed, 1916. Adapted to alternative use, 1940. Vacated, 1981. Restored, 1999, to accommodate alternative use. Pitched slate roof on a T-shaped plan with clay ridge tiles, lichen-covered cut-limestone coping to gables, and cast-iron rainwater goods on rendered cut-limestone eaves retaining cast-iron downpipes. Replacement cement rendered battered walls. Pointed-arch window openings with sills, timber Y-mullions, and concealed dressings framing timber pivot fittings having square glazing bars. Pointed-arch window opening to entrance (west) front with concealed dressings framing timber pivot fittings having square glazing bars. Interior remodelled, 1999. Set in shared grounds.
Appraisal
A chapel representing an important component of the built heritage of County Mayo with the architectural value of the composition, one showing the hallmarks of a period of construction coinciding with the gradual dismantling of the Penal Laws in anticipation of the Roman Catholic Relief Act, 1829, confirmed by such attributes as the traditional "T"-shaped plan form, aligned along a liturgically-correct axis; the feint battered silhouette; and the "pointed" profile of the openings underpinning a contemporary Georgian Gothic theme. NOTE: An adjacent graveyard includes the burial plots of Anne Bald (d. 1826) '[the] Wife of William Bald [cf. 31302702; 31311502]'; Michael Davitt (1846-1906), founder of the Irish National Land League (founded 1879); and a standardised Commonwealth War Grave Commission headstone over the burial plot of Private Owen Foy (d. 1918) of the Ninth Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers.