St Aloysius Church, Glasgow

The Jesuits arrived in Glasgow in 1859 by taking over the parish of St Joseph's Church, North Woodside Road. In the early 1860s they purchased land in the Garnethill district, which, at that time, was on the western outskirts of the city and a residential area recently favoured by the wealthier classes.[4]

In 1868, Fr William Kay SJ arrived at Garnethill with instructions to found a mission at St Aloysius which would be distinct from St Joseph’s. He quickly set about constructing a large building on Hill Street. This building was made of iron and glass, very similar to Glasgow Queen Street station, was known as 'Fr Kay’s Railway Shed'. This building served as the parish church for the next forty years.[4]

The Sisters of Mercy came to Garnethill in 1868 at the invitation of the Jesuits and rented from them two houses in Rose Street, the area now occupied by the church. However, a shortage of staff meant that the sisters could not work at the college next door, but they were able to continue to work in the primary school next to St. Joseph's church, which was a Jesuit parish until 1931 and closed in the 1970s.[4]

View along Rose Street

The foundation stone for the present church building was laid on 4 October 1908 and it was opened on 6 February 1910, by the Archbishop of Glasgow, John Maguire. The building is listed category A and was designed by a Belgian architect, Charles Jean Ménart in the baroque revival style. Ménart also designed St Peter's Church in Rathven. The church was unique amongst the Catholic churches of Glasgow in that it had a tower and is modelled on Namur Cathedral in Belgium and the Gesu in Rome.[1][3][4]

The two bells in the church tower were installed in 1910. They were originally part of a set of 10 bells that were placed in St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh in 1865. In 1890, St Giles' Cathedral sold the set to St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh for £20. At the time, St Mary's Cathedral was trying to raise money to build a tower to house the bells. In 1910, after the fundraising was unsuccessful, the set of bells were divided up and given to other churches, two of which went to St Aloysius church.[5]

Inside the church are four side chapels, The Sacred Heart Chapel, the Lady Chapel, the Holy Souls Chapel, the St Ignatius Chapel and in addition there is the St John Ogilvie national shrine, which was added in 1933 to mark John Ogilvie’s beatification which had taken place in 1929.[4]

The interior decoration of the church was a prolonged and costly enterprise and the debt increased alarmingly so that the prospect of the solemn consecration receded. It was not until after the Second World War that debt was steadily reduced and finally cleared. On 29 November 1953 Archbishop Donald Campbell presided at the solemn ceremony of consecration.[4]

In February 2008, a copy of the famous statue of Our Lady of Montserrat, also known as The Black Madonna, was donated to the church, situated in the Lady Chapel, by visitors from Spain and is only the second of such statues outside Catalonia.[4]