The Parish of Shankill and the Parish of Seagoe occupy a considerable portion of the southern shore of Lough Neagh.  Until the formation of the modern Parish of Moyraverty, Shankill and Seagoe were the only parishes of the Dromore Diocese located in County Armagh.  Until c.1750, Seagoe was considered the more important of the two under Catholic aegis.

The origin of the Parish of Shankill is by no means as clear-cut in historical documents as might be assumed.  That there was a pre-Reformation church in Shankill townland not far distant from the heart of Lurgan town, is affirmed by its inclusion in the Plantation maps of 1609.  Therefore, the subsequent foundation of Lurgan town by the incoming colonists, the Brownlow's, undoubtedly gave Shankill its prominence.  Yet, one hundred years later, at the Registration of Catholic Priests at Lurgan courthouse, on July 10th 1704, no priest came forward to represent Shankill.  The Reverend John Byrne, parish priest of Seagoe, represented both parishes. 

There were other church-sites close-at-hand which may have been as worthy of parish status as Shankill.  In 1440, the income from Seagoe Parish was so small that it could not support a parish priest, so it was united to neighbouring Enachloisgy or Annaloiste, lying on the very shore of the great lough.  Fifty years later, in 1492, further consolidation of northern parishes was approved and Kylilan, Tayagoba and Acadle were united.  These three names are generally perceived as Shankill, Seagoe and Aghalee respectively.  Additional licence is assumed by taking Kylmilan, Kilwilke and Shankill as referring to the same entity, an assumption which few really believe.  The late Dean Bernard Mooney was in no doubt that the Church of Annaloiste was Kilwilke, derived from Kylmilcon and associated with an early saint named Micho or Milchu. 

The parishes of Shankill and Seagoe remained united from 1492 until 1788 when the union was dissolved.  As the town of Lurgan increased in size, population, and relative prosperity, the Parish of Shankill grew in prominence.  And as if to herald this new importance, nine and a half important townlands were transferred from Seagoe to Shankill, in 1819, by the Most Reverend Dr Edmund Derry, Bishop of Dromore, and a native of Ballynamoney, near Lurgan.  These were; Drumgask, Moyraverty, Annalolste, Boconnell, Drumnnakelly, Kinnego, Knockramer, Silverwood, Turmoyra, and half of the major townland of Ballinamoney.  It is a fact that right up until the middle of the 20th century, many families from these transferred townlands retained some allegiance and much affection for their former parish.   

At the registration of County Armagh priests in Lurgan on July 10th 1704, the Reverend John Byme, Parish Priest of Seagoe, represented Shankill Parish also.  This infers that there was no priest ministering in Shankill, but other sources indicate that the Reverend Richard McGinn was baptising children in the district.  This evidence is written into the local Church of Ireland baptism register.  For the 18th century period, the location of Mass sites in Shankill Parish cannot be detailed with any certainty.  A Mass-garden is shown in Tannaghmore North on John Rocque's Map of County Armagh, 1760, but this is unlikely to have been the sole location of Catholic worship in the overall Shankill Parish.  The old church site in Shankill had been taken over by the Anglican in-comers soon after the plantation although local Catholics continued to use the adjoining graveyard without hindrance.  Around 1800 the Brownlow landlord family made a gift to the catholics of Lurgan of a mill-warehouse which stood on a rise a little distance from the Dougher stream, now piped, and which flows at the bottom of the greatly treasured Dougher graveyard.  At this time, the Catholic population of Shankill Parish was almost entirely rural, concentrated in the townlands a little distant from town. 

With the population of Ireland as a whole, and County Armagh in particular, undergoing rapid expansion, the converted church-warehouse in Dougher became too small to cater for Catholic parishioners.  And then, most likely acknowledgement that the long-awaited Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 had come to pass, the Brownlow’s donated the Dougher field which surrounded the primitive chapel to the Catholic people as a graveyard, and an elevated site in North Street, Lurgan, for the erection of a proper church.  In 1830-31, the Reverend William O'Brien, from the Broadwater area of Aghalee, began the building of the first St Peter's Church on the site.  

The church was a relatively long building which ran parallel to the narrow street on an approximate east-west axis, the traditional orientation of a Christian church.  The chapel at Lisnagade, near Loughbrickland, is quite similar to the original St Peter's Church in size, shape, distance from the road, and directional orientation.  Interestingly, Alex Richmond's Map of Lurgan, 1832, includes both the Dougher Chapel and the new St Peter's Church. 

Since then, St Peter's has been enlarged and remodelled in various phases and is now one of Ireland's finest parish churches.  Its progression towards the magnificent edifice Shankill parishioners now have for Mass, devotion and reflection is the legacy of many fine priests and many thousands of faithful parishioners.  If the tall tapering spire is an expression of exhilaration and jubilation in freedom and ease of worship, the beautiful sanctuary, enhanced by coloured and golden mosaic, is the focus of constant prayer in a location central for the great majority of parishioners. 

A glance at some social and economic material relating to Lurgan and Shankill Parish from the mid-19th century onwards demonstrates the characteristics which made the parish different from any other while still displaying demographic trends similar to these of many other districts.  The whole economic emphasis in the area during the entire 18th century had been on fine linen manufacture.  While the industry allowed money to percolate through all sectors of the population, it also attracted disadvantaged people from all the neighbouring parishes which meant that there was always a considerable number of poorer families within the town and surrounding districts.  With Lurgan the centre of a very populous administrative Union, families came in big numbers seeking solace and relief from hardship.  This was the situation when the Great Famine struck the land in October 1846.  Ten years later, following the part-mechanisation of the linen trade, major growth of population was recorded within all parts of Shankill Parish.   

Streets of new houses were erected alongside the new factories where restriction on the level of wages paid meant that women in the workforce greatly outnumbered men.  And then, the large year-on-year population increases of 1851-71 which had accompanied the growth of the local linen industry halted as investment slowed and house-building declined.  Linen manufacture continued to generate an abundance of female employment, and the gender balance within the parish became greatly distorted. 

In 1891, following an influx of families from neighbouring rural districts, there were almost 700 more Catholic females than males in Shankill parish, many of whom were of marriageable age.  

In 1901, in Lurgan town, overall, there were 1,737 females, aged 20 to u 40 years, per 1,000 males of similar age. Marriage prospects for young women, therefore, were not entirely favourable.  Among Catholics, the seasons of Lent and Advent continued to be non-marrying periods. This meant that few if any Catholic weddings in Shankill were celebrated in the months of March and December. 

The following table is representative of the post-Famine era, but does not tell the full story. 

MONTHLY NUMBERS OF CATHOLIC MARRIAGES IN SHANKILL PARISH 1900-03  

The almost complete absence of weddings in March indicates quite strict adherence to the code of restraint.  The December marriages seem to run contrary to the Advent prohibition but, surprisingly, most took place on Christmas Day.  In 1896, six weddings were held on Christmas Day; four, in 1900, and five on the corresponding day in 1901.  By 1920, Christmas Day weddings had ceased.  They probably arose on account of economic pressure locally on couples and their families in the 1890’s.  A wedding on that day would save the bride and groom and their families having to forfeit a days pay which would have happened if the wedding had taken place on a week-day.  Generally speaking, Advent and Lent were observed by Catholics as non-marrying periods until the 1970’s.  The following verse, inscribed in a Nottinghamshire parish register, was a fairly strict guide for the minister and the congregation when marriages could and could not be held.  

Advent marriage doth deny,

But Hilary gives thee liberty

Septuagesima says thee nay,

Eight days from Easter says you may.

Rogation bids thee to contain,

But Trinity sets you free again. 

The demographer, S H Cousens, considered the period, 1851-81, a distinctive period in Ireland's demographic history, as the nation attempted to cope with the social and economic uncertainties of the post-Famine period.  He was conscious of changing trends in the age of marriage and in the increasing incidence of celibacy, and linked the regional variations in these to the availability of land.  This certainly had application within Shankill parish as was shown at the local Land Commission hearings of 1882, held in Lurgan courthouse.  But a new social awareness among people, and greater expectations of life, were undoubtedly much stronger factors even when, or particularly when, the local linen-based economy was never far from a state of precariousness.  The low level of pay combined with arduous work practices meant that the collective economic attainment of one whole family was unlikely to be achieved by any one family member leaving home to marry.  Particularly when a family's living standards had risen above the minimum subsistence threshold, each family member's wage would be regarded as necessary for the collective well-being of the family. Moreover, local single males were likely to have been either weavers, labourers, clerks, shopboys or potential soldiers, all poorly paid with few prospects. For girls, therefore, who married locally, the social and economic outlook was far from bright.  Malthus addressed the problem from a male perspective:  Even the labourer who earns 18 to 24 pence a day, and lives at his ease as a single man, will hesitate a little before he divides his pittance among four or five which seems to be not more sufficient for one.  

Throughout the entire region, these and other factors combined to bring about an era characterised by increasing levels of delayed marriages and celibacy. Demographers suggest that the periods around 1880 and 1950 were demographic turning-points regionally.  In Lurgan, and in Shankill parish overall, the number of people who remained single throughout life, and who were born in the 1890-1930 period, was quite striking.  The phenomenon was all the more conspicuous when some individual families are considered.  Not one of a family of eight in Edward Street, Lurgan, married, even those who went long-term to England to seek work.  In another family of eight in Lurgan rural, one of three males and four of five females remained unmarried.  In a seven-member town family, one of three males and three of four females stayed single.  There were, of course, entire families who married, and other families where only one stayed at home to look after a parent or parents.  

Nevertheless, an unusually high incidence of celibacy was a feature of the Shankill parish population until the new economic and social order arose in the 1950s.  Then, a rejuvenated economic climate generated demographic change on a gradual and then major scale, as an array of new housing developments, new secondary schools, vastly improved social services and non-cyclical employment opportunities with good pay brought to Lurgan and to the parish, from parts east and west, new people with new skills and great expectations. Marriages soon followed.  

SHANKILL PARISH, LURGAN INITIATIVES AND MILESTONES 

1800 - A substantial mill building in Dougher was converted to a Catholic Chapel for the parishioners of Shankill Parish who were almost entirely rural dwellers. 

1822 - Registration of Catholic Baptisms in the Parish is well under way.

1822 - Reverend William O'Brien, Aghalee, was ordained and appointed C.C. Shankill.  Two years later in 1824, he was appointed Parish Priest on the death of the incumbent, Reverend John O'Kelly.  Thus began a most important, zealous and devoted pastorate which was to last until 1868. 

1827 - Part of the field surrounding the church building in Dougher townland was donated by the young Charles Brownlow to the parish to be used as a graveyard, an acknowledgement that Catholics wished to have a separate place of burial.  

1829 - .Probably as a response to the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, Charles Brownlow granted an appropriate site in North Street, Lurgan, to the Very Reverend William O'Brien, Parish Priest, for the erection of a parish church. 

1832 - Work on the new St Peter's Church is well under way.  Alex Richmond's Map of Lurgan, 1832, shows two Catholic Churches close together, one in Dougher, and one in the Back Lane (North Street). 

1833 - Dedication of the new St Peter's on September 1st 1833 by the Most Reverend Dr Blake, Bishop of Dromore. 

1834 - First storey of a parochial house erected in church grounds, and the Dougher Church converted to parish schools. 

1846-48 - With the Union workhouse located on the edge of Lurgan town, Father O'Brien undertook the very demanding duties of workhouse chaplain.  With fevers raging in the workhouse and poverty on the outside, workhouse duties meant that, in effect, the chaplain was catering for an additional parish.  Even on Christmas Day, Father O'Brien found time to tend to the spiritual welfare of the many Catholic workhouse inmates.  

1860 - Halftown School, now, St Teresa's was built. 

1862 - Dougher Cemetery enlarged; population of Lurgan town expanding rapidly after the trauma and suffering of the Great Famine are receding and the number of linen manufactories is increasing on a yearly basis. 

1863 - The first Shankill Parish Mission was conducted by three priests from the Order of Charity.  With the great increase in the parish population - the linen trade of Lurgan was in full swing - two additional curates were appointed, Reverend James McKenna and Reverend John McConville. 

1864 - Parochial House was enlarged. 

1865 - Edward Street schools were opened. 

1866 - The Sisters of Mercy came to Lurgan and took charge of the Edward Street schools. 

1867-69 - St Peter's Church is greatly enlarged with the addition of a new Sanctuary and Transepts.  The foundation stone of this major project, planned and undertaken by the Very Reverend William O'Brien, was laid by Bishop Leahy on June 29th 1867, and exactly two years later, Bishop Leahy dedicated the new additions. 

1875 - St Peter's School for Boys was opened adjacent to the now greatly enlarged St Peter's Church in North Street, Lurgan. 

1890-92 - A new extension to St Peter's Church enlarged the nave bringing the seating capacity to 1,200.  The imposing exterior architecture was complemented by a spacious interior of refinement and ideal proportion. 

1897-1901 - The magnificent spire of St Peter's Church, planned by a parish priest who had achieved so much in enlarging St Peter's, was dedicated by Dr O'Neill, Bishop of Dromore, on August 25th 1901.  The Reverend James O'Hare died in 1897 when the initial work on the spire had begun.  The spire was completed during the pastorate of the Reverend Michael McConville.  

1908 - The present St Michael's Grammar School was opened as a Boys' Industrial School. 1915 - The imposing organ which has enriched so many church services was purchased at £1,000 approximately. 

1922-24 - Coinciding with the Golden Jubilee of the Right Reverend Dean Michael McConville, a new marble High Altar was installed, the Sanctuary was embellished by a very beautiful array of mosaics, and a marble Communion Rail erected in memory of the Catholic dead of Lurgan and District who lost their lives during the Great War of 1914-18. 

1925-27 - The Sacristy was completely refurbished with pitch-pine compartments.  A new Sacred Heart Altar was installed.  The church interior was completely re-decorated to architectural instructions.  The Tower and Spire were 'pointed'.  The Tympanum over the main entrance depicting Christ handing the keys to Saint Peter was carved, and the Papal Crest in stone carved over the door of the Tower. 

1927 - St Peter's Church, being free from debt on account of extraordinary generosity of parishioners, many of whom were of deep faith and modest means, was consecrated on Thursday 19th May 1927 by Most Reverend Dr Edward Mulhern, Bishop of Dromore, with the Solemn Celebrations of the Consecration taking place on Sunday 22nd May 1927, presided over by His Eminence Cardinal O’Donnell, Archbishop of Armagh.
 

1933 - The Centenary of the erection and dedication of St Peter’s Church was celebrated on Sunday 3rd September 1933 by a Solemn High Mass in the presence of Cardinal MacRory, Bishop Mulhern and a large gathering of Priests.  The celebrant of the Mass was Reverend J P Burke, Deacon, Revered A J Sweeney; Sub-Deacon, Reverend J E Murtagh, Master of Ceremonies, Reverend David Gallery.  All four priests had affiliation with Shankill Park and Lurgan from childhood. 

1937 - St Colman’s Cemetery came into being on account of the diminishing capacity of the Dougher Cemetery to accommodate additional burials.  Two major extensions of the cemetery have been carried out. 

1958-59 - The Side-Altars, dedicated to the Sacred Heart and to Our Lady were embellished by appropriate mosaic designs. 

1968 - Entire flooring within the church was replaced, the organ was remodeled, and the great spire and cross were examined and repaired. 

1982 - On Sunday 26th December 1982, Bishop Francis Gerard Brooks consecrated the Altar of St Peter’s Church following the re-construction of the Sanctuary.  A permanent marble altar now faces the congregation.  An ambo fashioned from the marble of the original pulpit, and a marble chair made from the marble of the original altar, have been incorporated into the Sanctuary.  The Reredos remains intact and the floor of the Sanctuary has been raised.  The Baptismal Font now rests beside the Communion passage at the front of the Sanctuary. 

1983 - On October 2nd 1983, special ceremonies were held to commemorate the 150th Anniversary of the Dedication of St Peter's Church.  Bishop Francis Gerard Brooks was the principal celebrant of a Mass Thanksgiving.  Twenty-six priests concelebrated, all of whom had strong affiliation with the church, either as parish priests, curates or natives of the parish. 

1992 - Sunday 14th June:  A concelebrated Mass of Thanksgiving was held in St Peter's Church, Lurgan on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the ordination of the Right Rev Monsignor Christopher Murray, P.P V.G., Lurgan, Very Rev. Canon Patrick Smyth, P.P., Ballynahinch and Very Rev James Fitzpatrick. P,P., Annaclone. The other concelebrants were Rev Michael Hackett, C.C., Lurgan who was celebrating his Silver Jubilee in the priesthood, Rev Michael Maginn, C.C., Newry, a native of Lurgan, was the preacher. Bishop Brooks presided and a great number of Dromore priests and some from the Dioceses of Armagh, and Down and Connor were present along with a full church for the joyful occasion.   

1992 Friday, 4th September The parish of Shankill was divided into two parishes. St Peter's and St Paul's, Shankill. The new parish of St Peter's consists of the following townlands: 

• Kinnego
• Clanrolla
• Liscocran
• Tullydagan
• Tannaghmore North
• Lurgantarry
• Comakinnegar
• Drumnanoe
• Tullyronnelly
• Kilmore
• Killaghy
• and part of each of Lurgan, Drumnakelly, Ballyblagh, Dougher, Knocknashane, Derry and Turmoyra.  

The new parish of St Paul's consists of the following townlands: 

• Annaloiste
• Boconnell
• Knockramer
• Silverwood
• Shankill
• Taghnevan
• Tannaghmore South
• Tobemewey
• Aughnacloy
• Tirsogue
• and part of Lurgan Drumnakelly, Ballyblagh, Dougher, Knocknashane, Derry, Turmoyra, and part of Ballinamoney, (the other part in Seagoe parish), and part of Monbrief, (the other part in Moyraverty parish).  

Friday, 11th September Bishop Brooks made the following clerical changes -Very Rev Arthur Byrne P.P., Kilbroney to be P.P. of St Peter's, Lurgan, and V.G. of the diocese.  

Rev Francis Molloy, C.C., Craigavon to be P.P., St Paul's, Lurgan.