Belfarsad Catholic Church

Detached five-bay double-height single-cell Catholic church, built 1854-6; dated 1858, on a rectangular plan. Closed, 1960. Now in ruins. Pitched roof now missing with remains of cut-limestone coping to gables, and no rainwater goods surviving on cut-sandstone eaves. Roughcast walls on tooled cut-sandstone chamfered plinth with tooled sandstone ashlar stepped buttresses including tooled sandstone ashlar diagonal stepped buttresses to corners having tooled cut-sandstone "slated" coping. Lancet window openings between tooled cut-sandstone stepped buttresses with drag edged tooled cut-sandstone surrounds. Lancet "Trinity Window" (east) with drag edged tooled cut-sandstone surrounds framing remains of timber fittings. Pointed-arch door opening to entrance (west) front below drag edged cut-limestone shield date stone ("1858") with dragged cut-sandstone surround having chamfered reveals framing iron gate. Lancet window opening (gable) with drag edged tooled cut-sandstone surround. Interior in ruins retaining ruled and lined surface finish. Set in unkempt grounds.

The shell of a church 'ERECTED By The Revd. JAs. Henry [d. 1870]' representing an important component of the mid nineteenth-century ecclesiastical heritage of Contae Mhaigh Eo [County Mayo] with the architectural value of the composition confirmed by such attributes as the compact rectilinear "barn" plan form, aligned along a liturgically-correct axis; the multi-toned sandstone dressings demonstrating good quality workmanship; and the slender profile of the openings underpinning a "medieval" Gothic theme with the chancel defined by an elegant "Trinity Window".