A building committee was established and a weekly penny collection taken in for the construction project. The architect was to be Thomas Duff of Newry who had designed the Cathedral there and also the Pro-Cathedral at Dundalk. He designed a cruciform building, with nave, aisles, transepts, chancel, and choir; a large square central tower, and two smaller ones on the west front flanking the great doorway, and flush with the aisle walls, resembling York Minster. As at Dundalk, the style was a highly romanticised version of the Perpendicular Gothic of the sixteenth century. The foundation stone was laid on St Patrick's Day 1838 but as a result of the Irish Famine, work ground to a halt in 1847 with the foundations and aisles only partially complete.