Ballyholme St Columbanus (Bangor East)

History

Until the early 1900s Ballyholme was a small townland set apart from Bangor. The area grew rapidly through the 1920s and 1930s, and with that growth came the view that a new church was needed to serve local families. The parish's work formally began in 1939, when the Right Reverend J. Irvine Peacocke, Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, laid the foundation stone of St Columbanus Parish Church. The church first opened its doors in 1950.

The dedication is to Columbanus, the sixth-century Bangor Abbey monk who, in the parish's account, sailed from the local shore with twelve companions and is credited with reviving Christianity in continental Europe. The parish gives the meaning of the name as white dove in the ancient Irish.

A parish centre was built in 2006, work beginning in February and the building formally opened on 14 May that year. Of the donations received towards it, 10 per cent were given to the parish's link diocese of Kajiado in Kenya, towards the building of the diocesan headquarters there.

A restoration of the church, following a consultation held in 2009, began in May 2016 and addressed disability access, health and safety, children's facilities, seating and the music and audio arrangements. Sunday services were held in St Columbanus College on Ballymaconnell Road during the work, which was complete by November 2016, when the congregation returned on Advent Sunday.