Agherton Parish, Portstewart

  Portstewart, a seaside parish on the North coast (present population 13,000+), is part of a 'triangle' linked to its neighbouring resort of Portrush and the busy market town of Coleraine in which is located the Coleraine campus of the University of Ulster.

  Always a popular tourist resort Portstewart, continues to see growth both in its indigenous population and in the numbers of holidaymakers who choose to have second-homes here.

  The Church is dedicated to St John the Baptist and was consecrated for worship in 1841.

  The bells in the Tower were installed as a memorial to parishioners who died in the Great War (1914-18).  Before that time only a single bell existed in the Tower.

  The Foundation Stone for the present Parish Centre was laid on 13th October 1962 by Canon E.G. Dixon, a former rector who had served the parish for thirty years until 1960.  The Centre was opened officially on 11th January 1964 by the then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Captain Terence O'Neill.   In 1998 a newly-renovated and extended building was dedicated by the Bishop of Connor, the Rt. Rev. J.E. Moore. 

  Today Agherton has over 600 families attached to the Church and this figure is continuing to grow.  The need for a Curate-Assistant since the 1960s has highlighted this fact.  We are thankful in Agherton for the help of the many retired clergy who have chosen to spend their golden years in this part of Ireland.

  Details of our activities and worship structures can be found at the appropriate links above. For the arrangement of marriages and baptisms please contact one of the clergy or the Parish Office (see 'Contact us').

Agherton yesterday...

  The old parish of Agherton in the County of Londonderry  occupied the whole of the promontory between the river Bann and the Atlantic ocean comprising, according to an Ordinance survey, 8896 statute acres¹ and 38 townlands.

  The name 'Agherton' (or properly 'Bally O'Hatheran') was given to it by a family of the name of Ohatheran who owned this district long before the Conquest of Ireland and after it.  The original parish church, on the leading road from Portstewart to Coleraine, was listed in a nationwide ecclesiastical taxation book as the "Church of O'Hatheran".²  While some historians suggest that the church was built by a family of the O'Neills (a branch of the Shane's Castle family) who resided a long time here, it is more likely that it was one of the churches founded by St. Patrick. In the sixteenth century the O'Neills put a new roof on the Church.  It was unroofed by a great storm early in the eighteenth century, and was roofed again by Felix O'Neill, Land Steward of Shane's Castle, who dwelt beside it in Flowerfield House in 1740.³ The oldest tombstone within the Church's graveyard is dated 1713.⁴   When Agherton's parishioners decided to build a new church it was sited across the road from the older building, and was consecrated on 25 April 1827.  The roof was taken off the old church and sold, and it has remained roofless ever since.⁵   On this page you will find a current photograph of the ruins of the old church.

  The new Agherton Parish Church remained in its original location for only 12 years, after which it was taken down stone by stone and removed by the parishioners, to be rebuilt in its present situation in the centre of what was then the expanding fishing village of Portstewart.  It was opened for worship on 18th December 1839 and dedicated on 15th July 1841.⁶

 

¹S.Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, London,1837.
²W.Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor and Dromore, Dublin, 1847.
³W.Adams, Dalriada or North Antrim, Coleraine Chronicle,1906
⁴K.Nevin and G. Hastings, Agherton Old Graveyard, Coleraine, 1987, pp. 1, 20.
⁵W.Adams, Dalriada or North Antrim.
⁶A.Thomas, Agherton Parish: A Brief History, Coleraine, 1996, p.10