St Patrick, Cranagh

St Patrick’s is a Gothic Revival Catholic church of 1912 in the Glenelly valley at Cranagh, County Tyrone, in the Diocese of Derry and the parish of Badoney Upper (Plumbridge).

Overview

The present church replaced an earlier St Joseph’s on the high side of the road beside the original graveyard. It was commissioned under the Revd James McGoerty, parish priest, to designs attributed to J. P. McGrath of Derry, with Michael Sweeney of Derry as contractor, and was completed in 1912. The Dictionary of Irish Architects records a new church with a large gallery and hammer-beam roof, finished that year. A centenary in 2012 was marked by the parish book Of Stone and Story.

The building is a rectangular nave with a narrowed gabled chancel to the east, an attached north sacristy, and a single-storey west porch. Roofs are natural slate with clay roll-top ridges; the west gable carries a bellcote. Walls are rendered masonry with north and south buttresses. Pointed windows have Y tracery and original leaded stained glass. The galleried interior with timber roof trusses and sheeted ceilings keeps much of its original character; sanctuary furnishings of the 1930s (including a high altar design of 1932 by Ralph Henry Byrne) were altered after the Second Vatican Council, with further sanctuary changes in 1990. The church is listed Grade B2 in Northern Ireland.

Further Information

• Dictionary of Irish Architects: Church of St Patrick, Cranagh
• Diocese of Derry: Plumbridge parish
• Glenelly Valley Post: Cranagh church centenary