St Malachy's Church, Belfast

The Bishop of Down and Connor Dr Cornelius Denvir had for a long period during the 1830s sought an appropriate location for a third church to provide increased sacramental support for the burgeoning Catholic population.

Mr Adam McClean, a Protestant merchant and owner of the large expanse of property behind Donegall Square South known as 'McClean's Fields', offered the Bishop a site on attractive terms.

Originally - and briefly - Saint Malachy's was intended to be the cathedral church of the Diocese of Down and Connor: however, due to financial difficulties, a smaller building was constructed.

[3] All that remains of the original ornaments is the canopy over the pulpit which has been painted white to match the marble of the present altar furnishings.

Sir Charles Brett stated: It is as though a wedding cake has been turned inside out, so creamy, lacy and frothy is the plasterwork.

The explosion caused a huge vacuum in the local area which literally sucked out the remainder of the windows and the original Irish oak frames were destroyed.

While the church suffered a great deal of damage during the War it was still kept open by doing the work in stages, sometimes with half the building closed off.

That period of urban planning, and the age of the church itself, led to a deterioration in the condition of the brickwork meaning a full-scale restoration programme which began in January 2008 and was completed in 2009 at a cost of £3,500,000.

Close to the church stood a whiskey distillery, and its owners claimed that the peal of the bell was upsetting the distillation process.