Background

Centre History

The first Waterside Methodist Church (the Hall at Clooney) was opened on our current site in May 1862 and enlarged in 1893 while the extension into mission work for the Church was started during 1894 and resulted in the setting up of the City Mission.

 In 1895 an appeal was launched for financial help to build a larger building and the church known as Clooney Hall was opened in September 1896.  This building became a familiar landmark to many people in the city throughout the 20th Century.  During the latter part of the century, however, the cost of repairs and maintenance began to escalate and finally the decision was made to demolish the building and rebuild once again on the same site.  The final services were held in September 1999 and the building was demolished in January 2000.

Clooney Hall Centre

The project to demolish and rebuild cost approximately £1.8 million with the present building, opened in January 2001, being known as Clooney Hall Centre.

The building houses not only the Clooney Hall Methodist Church but also was designed to offer multi-purpose accommodation available for use by statutory and/or voluntary agencies as a resource for community development and social inclusion.

The Centre is a five storey building that provides a range of accommodation including:

Level 1

Multi-purpose hall, kitchen, store, blocks of toilets for ladies and gentlemen, disabled toilet with baby changing facility
 
Level 2
 
Committee room (currently used by Action Cancer) and foyer overlooking the multi-purpose hall

Level 3

Church Sanctuary, Vestry, Centre and Mission Office, tea room, main reception area, blocks of toilets for ladies and gentlemen, disabled toilet with baby changing facility

Level 4

Gallery room (meeting room overlooking the church), conference room, meeting room with computer facilities, Superintendent’s office, Church of Ireland Office, Action Cancer counselling room.

Level 5

Suite of offices with private kitchen and toilet facilities, presently leased to the Western Health & Social Services Trust for their Western Fostering and Early Years Units

With spacious corridors and a lift to all floors, this building is ideally suited to meeting the current legislation on providing access to all users.