A Catholic church in Northern Ireland has won the first “Church of the Year” award, presented by the National Churches Trust, the conservation charity.
St Macartan’s Church in Augher, County Tyrone, known as the Forth Chapel, won an award for maintenance as well as the overall prize at the inaugural awards ceremony, held in Mercers’ Hall in London on 24 October.
The judges particularly praised the church for “the combined strength of its approach to looking after the building, the involvement of local people as volunteers and the way that St Macartan’s is promoted as part of the heritage of County Tyrone”.
Built between 1838 and 1846, the grade B+ listed church sits in the Clogher Valley on the site of an early Irish ring fort, giving its cemetery an unusual circular boundary. The site was used for open-air Masses during penal times, and the church was once the cathedral for the diocese of Clogher.
It has four stained-glass windows from the Clarke Studio, installed in 1922. Harry Clarke is Ireland’s most celebrated stained-glass artist and was a key figure in the country’s arts and crafts movement.
The windows were recently restored as part of a wider heritage project funded by the National Churches Trust “Treasure Ireland” scheme. he charity said this “proved to be a catalyst for the church, creating a real sense of vibrancy with lots of people becoming involved in many aspects of church life”.
Nina McNeary, the charity’s church support officer for Northern Ireland, said that it was “a pleasure to witness the journey they have been on”. “The windows are the hook,” she told The Tablet, but she said these introduced parishioners and visitors to the church’s deeper history.
The awards judges said: “There’s a sense of bringing everyone together to share in the activity. It’s wonderful to see an ecumenical project which demonstrates that leadership is a real linchpin to success. So often the clergy think that the gutters have nothing to do with their vocation but it’s great to see their involvement here.”
For the past 12 years a committee of parishioners and the parish priest have organised maintenance work for the church, consulting with a conservation architect on any major problems.
Elsewhere, two Catholic churches have reached the shortlist for the heritage awards run by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. St Aloysius’s Church in Glasgow and the Honan Chapel in University College, Cork (which also houses significant Clarke Studio glass) are listed for the John Betjeman Award for repair to places of worship.
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