A stone's throw away from the hustle and bustle of Belfast's Donegall Square is one of the city's quaintest and most historic churches. St Malachy's is a wonder, unlike nearly any other church in Ireland. To passers-by its Tudor exterior might even suggest a medieval hall or as one commentator unkindly put it, 'a Victorian waterworks'! St Malachy's is, however, very much a religious building, one of the oldest Catholic churches erected in Belfast. Since its expansion in the late sixteenth century Belfast had been a largely Protestant town. In the nineteenth century its population expanded rapidly, primarily thanks to a thriving industrial sector. The successes of Belfast's industries lured a growing number of Catholics to the city from rural Ulster. By the 1830s the city was served by two Catholic churches: St Mary's, Chapel Lane, and St Patrick's, Donegall Street. However, these soon proved inadequate to cater for the burgeoning Catholic community, and a new church was needed.
The early nineteenth century was a period of renewal and reform for the Catholic Church in Ireland. Now free to erect noble and more permanent buildings, many dioceses embarked on building cathedrals. Down and Connor, the diocese to which Belfast belonged, had initially foreseen the new St Malachy's as the diocesan cathedral. Thus grand plans were laid for the new building, which would be capable of accommodating some several thousand worshipers. Thomas Jackson was chosen to design the new church. Jackson, a Quaker born in Waterford, had made a name for himself in industrial Ulster, going onto design Belfast Town Hall in 1871. The outbreak of the Famine in 1840 severely curtailed the original plans for a grand cathedral: instead the already built sanctuary and chancel were to be completed as a much scaled down parish church.
St Malachy's interior was rather unusual in the fact that it was considerably wider than it was longer. This was of course because of the revised design: what we see above was originally planned as the sanctuary, giving some idea of the scale of the proposed church. To maximize the capacity the church was given galleries on three sides. The interior's crowing feature was its wonderful plaster Tudor roof. A favourite of the poet Sir John Betjemen, St Malachy's was chosen to receive a £3.5 million renovation in 2010.
