Our purpose, in our own words
To improve the lives of children and young people in Downpatrick without distinction of sex, political, religious or other opinion. That is our charitable purpose, word for word.
A safe place
Registered charity. Qualified youth workers. Open Monday to Friday.
Real development
Learning that feels like fun, built on the Department of Education's Priorities for Youth framework.
Cross community
Amplify and CRED bring young people together across schools, traditions and communities, with Cooperation Ireland, Lecale, Trinity Grammar and Blackwater Integrated.
From dance hall to youth centre
Patrician Youth Centre is the parish youth centre for Downpatrick and the principal youth provider for the whole catchment area. Our door is open to every child and young person, without distinction. And this corner of John Street has been gathering the town together for ninety years. Scroll through the story.
St Patrick's Hall is built
The parish raises one of the biggest parochial halls in Northern Ireland. Everyone calls it the Canon's Hall.
& 60s
The showband years
Showbands every week, and a floor open to every background and tradition in the town. The welcome we still work to started here.
A night at the Canon's Hall
The hall is lost to fire
The youth club met here that evening and left at ten, as usual. By the early hours of 19 March 1974 the hall was gone.
The Canon's Hall after the fire
Building the new on top of the old
New law had made youth work a statutory duty of Northern Ireland's education boards, opening a capital programme for youth buildings. Fr Joseph Maguire made Downpatrick's case: families were being moved out of Belfast to the new estates here, so the town needed what Belfast and Derry were getting.
He had the site, insurance money from the fire, and a grant from the Department of Education. Six years of pressing the case ended in compensation at Downpatrick Crown Court, and he told the court what would rise here:
"A commodious youth club of about 8,000 sq ft, catering not only for parishioners but for any young people between the ages of 10 and 21 who would care to join." Fr Joseph Maguire, Downpatrick Crown Court, January 1980
Down Recorder, January 1980
Patrician Youth Centre opens
A purpose built home for young people, one of fourteen across the Diocese of Down and Connor. The dancing carries on: the discos draw teenagers from near and far.
The new Centre, around 1981
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The curtain goes up
Patrician Youth Theatre stages its first show and never stops. Panto for years, then musicals, and casts of fifty or more ever since.
Ten years, 400 members
The Centre turns ten with more than 400 members, open five nights a week. Its Jack and the Beanstalk plays to packed houses in Newcastle and Downpatrick.
PYC Table Tennis Championships, February 1990
on
Awards, exchanges and the wider world
Members win Duke of Edinburgh and trainee leader awards, meet youth groups from Belfast to Holywood, and travel as far as France and Germany.
Members at the European Parliament, Strasbourg
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Amplify brings young people together
The only youth centre chosen to deliver Amplify, a cross border good relations programme funded through the EU's PEACE IV.
Nobody goes hungry
With Children in Northern Ireland and Finnebrogue Artisan, Holiday Hunger grows tenfold. In one year: 12,867 meals, 6,340 snacks, 810 food parcels.
Still here, still for everyone
More than 1,000 members aged 4 to 18, on the same corner where the showbands played. Everyone welcome, same as ever.
PYC on John Street today, on the old Canon's Hall site
Throwback
Photos from the Centre's own albums. In one of them and would rather not be? Get in touch and it comes down, no questions.
Management and staff
Management committee
Appointed by the Centre Trustees, and accountable to our members.
Qualified youth workers
Qualified youth workers: a Senior Youth Worker and a Centre based Youth Worker.
Part time team & volunteers
Twenty part time workers, specialists and volunteers. Many grew up here themselves.
Come and see for yourself
The best way to get to know the Centre is to walk through the door. We're on John Street, open Monday to Friday.