St. Patrick's is and was also known as the Shankill Roman Catholic Parish Church. It is a beautiful building, and quite imposing. Building started on St. Peter's in 1830. It was dedicated in 1833 and has since been remodelled and enlarged.
The ornate marble was installed between 1922 and 1924, so it's not likely that my grandpa, Frank McAtamney, was baptised here in 1908, but it did cross my mind!
My wife has vivid memories of Fr. Patrick McAtanmey, who was parish priest of St. Peters Church in Belfast in the 1950s. If he was in the sacristy getting vested for a Mass for the children, he often heard a loud roar of conversation from the pews, and would walk out to the pulpit, look over the children and say, "Where do you think you are? Johnny Donnelly's?! Donnelly's was a movie theater in Belfast. Then he would go back to the sacristy. There would be silence for a few moments or minutes and then the sounds began again, soon becoming a roar as before :) Something similiar often happened when the children were lined up for confessions, with the boys on one side, the girls on the other. There would be talking and laughing, and Fr. McAntamney would come out of the confessional and walk down the line of boys, clipping them on the ear. The girls were spared.
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