CHURCH OF THE IMMACULTE CONCEPTION
CHAPEL OF EASE

Nestling among the trees, and partially screened from the roadway on the east side of Cullybackey on the road to Ballymena stands the “Chapel of Ease” Roman Catholic Church.
Cullybackey is situated within the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical parish of Ahoghill and the spiritual needs of the members of that church resident in the village of Cullybackey are looked after by the priest of this parish.

Father Lynch, parish priest in Ahoghill from 1827-1847 purchased a farm on the Ballymena Road, later owned by the Cassidy family, when he realised that a mass station would be very useful for his parishioners in Cullybackey. A room in the farm house was used for religious purposes until 1866. In this year the Rev. Robert Casement, a Protestant clergyman, granted, free of rent a lease for five hundred years, and the present little edifice was built by the Rev. Charles S. Quinn.

Rev John McCourt, the Roman Catholic pastor of Ahoghill in 1861 was actively engaged in the erection of the Chapel of Ease in the village of Cullybackey. The parish over which he presided was extensive and many of his parishioners lived in the Cullybackey area. To help meet their spiritual needs the Rev McCourt with the aid of acquaintances in Ballymena, Glenarm and other parts of County Antrim whom he relied on for their generosity raised the money to build the chapel. The chapel was blessed and opened by Bishop Dorian within his first two years as Bishop in 1868.

This very simple but attractive building, built in rubble basalt with granite quoins in a small hall style with four bays of single lancets lighting one side, and three lancets above the alter. Today this little chapel still nestles among the trees with the grounds kept in good order and the parish priest of Ahoghill still attends to the spiritual needs of the Roman Catholic people of Cullybackey.