About Saint Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Belfast, Northern Ireland:
In 1782 there were 365 Catholics living in Belfast without a Catholic church. The Presbyterian Church and Church of Ireland (Protestant) communities took up a special collection at their services – the Handsome Collection – and made a gift of the monies donated to build the first Catholic Church in Belfast – St Mary’s Chapel Lane. The generosity of the Presbyterian and Church of Ireland people of Belfast demonstrates the unprecedented religious tolerance of that time.
Saint Mary’s was finished in 1784, just two short years later and on Sunday May 30, 1784 Mass was celebrated for the first time in the new church by Father Hugh O’Donnell, first Parish Priest of Belfast.
A sister church was built – St Mary’s on the Hill in Whiteabbey. And Father O’Donnell would mount his horse after saying Mass in Belfast and ride on horseback to Whiteabbey to say Mass there.
Their beautiful pulpit was donated to St Mary’s by the Vicar of Belfast, Canon Turner, of the Anglican Church in High Street in 1813.
To the right of the church, is a grotto featuring a stained-glass window commemorating the church’s role in sheltering evacuees from the 1956 Hungarian uprising.
Address: Chapel Lane Belfast BT1 1HH
Tel: +353 028 9032 0482
E-mail: stmarys@downandconnor.org