Saint Patrick's Catholic Church

Detached six-bay double-height single-cell Catholic church, dated 1824; extant 1838, with single-bay single-storey gabled projecting porch to entrance (west) front. "Improved", pre-1895, producing present composition. Renovated, ----, with sanctuary reordered. Pitched slate roofs including pitched (gabled) slate roof to porch with clay ridge tiles, lichen-covered concrete coping to gables on "Cyma Recta" or "Cyma Reversa" kneelers with wrought iron finials to apexes, and replacement uPVC rainwater goods on rendered eaves. Roughcast walls on rendered chamfered plinth with rendered quoins to corners centred on benchmark-inscribed repointed tooled limestone ashlar stepped buttresses having tooled cut-limestone "slated" coping. Lancet window openings with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and rendered surrounds framing storm glazing over fixed-pane fittings having stained glass margins centred on leaded stained glass ovals. Lancet "Trinity Window" to chancel (east) with surround having chamfered reveals framing storm glazing over fixed-pane fittings having stained glass margins centred on leaded stained glass panels. Interior including vestibule (west); square-headed door opening into nave with replacement glazed timber double doors; full-height interior open into roof with timber panelled choir gallery (west) on cast-iron colonette pillars, mosaic tiled central aisle between cruciform-detailed timber pews, paired Gothic-style timber stations between stained glass windows (undated), exposed strutted collared timber roof construction on beaded "Cavetto" corbels with wind braced timber boarded or tongue-and-groove timber panelled ceiling in carved timber frame on perforated frieze, and Tudor-headed chancel arch framing stepped dais to sanctuary (east) reordered, ----, with cut-veined white marble Gothic-style high altar below stained glass memorial "Trinity Window" (????). Set in landscaped grounds with cruciform-detailed rendered, ruled and lined piers to perimeter having shallow pyramidal capping.

A church representing an important component of the early nineteenth-century ecclesiastical heritage of County Mayo with the architectural value of the composition, one showing the hallmarks of a period of construction coinciding with the dismantling of the Penal Laws in anticipation of the Roman Catholic Relief Act, 1829, confirmed by such attributes as the rectilinear "barn" plan form, aligned along a liturgically-correct axis; and the slender profile of the openings underpinning a "medieval" Georgian Gothic theme with the chancel defined by an elegant "Trinity Window": meanwhile, a comparison of the first (surveyed 1838; published 1839) and second (surveyed 1895; published 1897) editions of the Ordnance Survey clearly illustrates the continued development or "improvement" of the church in the later nineteenth century. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the historic or 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 contemporary joinery; a restrained wall monument; and vibrant stained glass including the ???? Memorial "Trinity Window", all establish the artistic potential of the composition: meanwhile, an exposed timber roof construction pinpoints the engineering or technical dexterity of a church making a pleasing visual statement in a rural setting.