St Patrick’s Millisle gets a makeover
St. Patrick’s, Millisle was built in 1953 as a daughter church of Donaghadee Parish, but in the late 60’s became the responsibility of the Rector at Carrowdore and so the grouped parishes of Christ Church, Carrowdore and St. Patrick’s, Millisle, were formed.
Although the smaller partner in the Group, St. Patrick’s has always had very close connections with its community and village and a strong desire and willingness to be God’s kingdom there along with the other denominations.
As a building, you can see from the picture above that it was very much a product of its time, and although important, it was very easily mistaken for a village hall by those passing through and certainly not obviously a church. This is even true of many of those who attend the weekly car boot sale which takes place every Friday morning between Easter and the end of September.
Part of our Mission 2015 initiative was to raise the profile of our Church and so the concept of a ‘makeover’ was born. For many years we’ve been looking at making the building more useful to the church and community and we are still exploring the possibility of extending to provide additional room and proper kitchen and better toilet facilities. However, we also thought of a large “St. Patrick’s Church” sign across the top of the building so people would know where we were. Meanwhile, in early 2014 the local Community Association were talking about ‘turning Millisle pink’ as part of a breast cancer awareness initiative in conjunction with Asda. This happened in May of that year and St. Patrick’s joined in by allowing the front of our building to be painted a light shade of pink. So the makeover process began.
Further discussion with “The Garage”, youth community forum explored the possibility of a joint project whereby the young people could, with guidance, paint a graffiti style “St. Patrick’s Church” above the front windows. This idea was developed further and so in early 2015 three or four ideas for the mural concept were presented to the Select Vestry and a combination of these ideas were agreed.
The project was funded for the Forum by Ards Borough Council PCSP (before the ‘super’ councils began) and the work carried out by Blaze FX and the young people from The Garage youth forum. It took a couple of stages to complete and was eventually finished in early August when we had an official ‘unveiling’ with representatives from all the stake holders and other community members.
Many people have said they weren’t aware where the Church of Ireland in Millisle was. That will no longer be the case!
No, it still doesn’t look like a traditional church, but then it never did. It will attract people’s attention rather than looking like a village hall and many have remarked that it brightens up the village and its good to see a happy and friendly mural. In reality we know it won’t be everyone’s ‘cup of tea’ but we do hope that it is a more colourful and uplifting facade for our simple church as we seek to be part of God’s Kingdom in Millisle.