INTRODUCTION
The Church of the Holy Family
in Derry is sited at the end of the Ballymagroarty
estate. Central to the local Primary School, shopping
centre and restaurant, it now serves some 9000 parishioners
from not just Ballymagroarty, but also from Hazelbank,
Foyle Springs, the Branch, Templegrove, Whitehouse
Park, Coshquin and the Springtown Road.
The splendid
church building, which seats 650, was designed and built
by Hegarty Masterson Doherty Architects and McCormick
Building Contractors. It has 14 windows with a Station
of the Cross, designed by Desmond Kyne, being the centre
piece of each.
The inside ceiling
is panelled in red wood and the seats are positioned
in a semi-circular fashion which corresponds to the
image of the church being a place which facilitates
a communion of God's people gathered to praise His name.
The roof of the
church rises to its highest point over the sanctory,
and it is finished with a glass re-inforced plastic
fleche. Adjoining the church is the two-storey parochial
house whose steel-framed brick piers have been formed
around steel columns on the perimeter of the building.
It's roof rises rises to a central roof-light over hanging
a staircase.
The land around
the church has been landscaped and planted, and recently
added flood-lights enhance the beauty of the church
building by night.
The Holy Family
Parish Church was opened and solemly dedicated by Bishop
Daly on September 25th 1983.
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