It was in this church in the summer of 1776 that Hugh Brontë and Alice McClory (grandparents of the famous Brontë sisters) were married. Although engaged to Joe Burns, a local farmer and fellow Catholic, Alice had secretly decided to take a different groom to the altar, and in a different church.
The McClory family did not approve of Alice’s friendship with Hugh. Not only was he not local and little known about him, he had no visible prospects and most importantly he was not a Roman Catholic. On the other hand Joe Burns filled all the McClory’s desires, though not Alice’s.
Today the church stands roofless but proudly on top of a County Down drumlin just a couple of miles from
Banbridge. Built in 1770 to replace an older and smaller church, which was in serious disrepair, it in turn was replaced in 1886 by a new church on an adjoining drumlin. The well-kept churchyard surrounding the ruin is still in use today and attracts visitors not only for the Brontë connection, but also to visit the grave of a well-known playwright and author, Helen Waddell. Although born in Tokyo she was brought up in the Banbridge area and expressed a desire to be buried at Magherally.
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