Holy Cross Church is a sandstone

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

church in the Lombardic Romanesque style located at the intersection of the

Crumlin Road The Crumlin Road is a main road in north-west Belfast, Northern Ireland. The road runs from north of Belfast City Centre for about four miles to the outskirts of the city. It also forms part of the longer A52 road which leads out of Belfast to th ...

and Woodvale Road in

Ardoyne Ardoyne () is a working class and mainly Roman Catholic Church, Catholic and Irish republicanism, Irish republican district in north Belfast, Northern Ireland. In 1920 the adjacent area of Marrowbone saw at multiple days of communal violence be ...

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

. The current church replaced an earlier house of worship that had stood on the same site since 1869.

History

In 1868, the

Bishop of Down and Connor The Bishop of Down and Connor () is an episcopal title which takes its name from the town of Downpatrick (located in County Down) and the village of Connor (located in County Antrim) in Northern Ireland. The title is still used by the Catholic C ...

, Dr

Patrick Dorrian Patrick Dorrian (1814–1885) was an Irish Roman Catholic Prelate and 23rd Lord Bishop of Down and Connor. Early life and education Dorrian was born in Downpatrick on 29 March 1814, one of four sons of Patrick Dorrian and his wife Rose (née ...

, invited a group of

Passionists The Passionists, officially named the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ (), abbreviated CP, are a Catholic clerical religious congregation of pontifical right for men, founded by Paul of the Cross in 1720, with a special emphasis on ...

, a Catholic clerical religious congregation, to establish a church and parish in

. Fr Raphael, Fr Alphonsus and Brother Luke initially built a small church which opened in 1869 followed by a retreat house and monastery in 1881. The adjoining Monastery was constructed in 1877-81 to the designs of Dublin based architects O’Neill & Byrne but in 1890 the walls of the original church were found to be in danger of collapse. Restoration work was begun but with the increase in the local population it was clear that an entirely new church building was required. https://apps.communities-ni.gov.uk/Buildings/buildview.aspx?id=17566&js=false

References

External links

Holy Cross, Belfast city
- Catholic Parish Registers at National Library of Ireland Roman Catholic churches in Belfast {{NorthernIreland-RC-church-stub