General News
4 December, 2025
Timely facelift for St Mary’s
ST Mary’s ‘by the sea’ Church now sits in an idyllic spot on the waterfront in Port Douglas, but its journey to get there has been somewhat turbulent and definitely adventurous.
Settled in its beautiful spot for some years now, and bringing pleasure to both locals and visitors to the Douglas Shire for weddings, baptisms and other special occasions, the much-loved historic building has recently had some well-deserved ‘TLC’.
Like many of us, as we get a few years on the clock, the cost of staying healthy and looking good can climb and can certainly be more of a challenge.
Similarly, the recent work on the church has been somewhat expensive, in fact, considerably more than most of us would probably imagine.
Like any maintenance, especially for an older building, it doesn’t come cheap and that is why an income is required from the use of the church for weddings and other functions.
General repairs were put on hold due to COVID, but just recently, a number of jobs have been carried out at great expense.
This includes external painting costing $46,000, internal cleaning at $6270 and other works, such as replacement of the rotten frame around the front door, which fetched a bill of $18,480
Virginia ‘Ginni’ Donovan has now handed over control of the Port Douglas Restoration Society to Danielle Piat, which is quite fitting, as she is the daughter of co-founder, the late Judi Piat.
This new generation of leadership has been responsible for coordinating much of the recent repairs.
The church building was originally built by the Catholic church in 1880, which opened on 8 March 1881.
In 1911, the church was destroyed during a cyclone, later being rebuilt using the scattered debris of the original structure.
St Mary’s remained at this location for 70 years, slowly deteriorating.
Back in 1986, significant changes were about to take place, not only for the church but for Port Douglas in general, as major projects got underway.
At the time, the building of the Sheraton Mirage was the talk of the town and this resulted in the arrival of several developers to the area.
As an example, Club Tropical, opposite the police station, was originally a little Anglican church.
According to locals, who were around at the time, suddenly overnight it disappeared, apparently as the land had been bought by a developer who then bowled it over.
Some months after that, the Catholic priest, from St Mary’s which was then situated on Grant St, turned around at the Sunday gathering and said: “I’d like the locals to stay behind I’ve got something to tell you.
“This land has been sold to a developer.”
An inquisitive Virginia ‘Ginni’ Donovan asked the question: “What is going to happen to the little church?”
The priest replied: “I don’t know, they’ll probably just take it to the dump.”
Shocked by this, Ginni said her now famous quote: “You can’t take 100 years of history to the dump.”
Ginni, after a conversation with local Judi Piat, agreed that they felt extremely disappointed with the situation and decided to do something about it.
As a result, they got a group of ladies together, who became known as ‘those ladies’ within the-then local print media.
The group approached the Cairns Catholic Diocese who gave them permission to take the old church.
As part of the deal, however, they had to prove to the current council that the church was actually worth saving, so to formalise everything, they became the Port Douglas Restoration Society Inc.
The society made a legal application for the church and with this request granted, they approached the council for some land to put it on.
Stipulations made by council were that at no time should ratepayers be responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the building, it had to be cyclone-proofed and also be maintained to the highest degree, including the gardens.
With a project of this size, there were many obstacles to overcome.
One was that in order to transport the church in one piece to its new location, it would require lifting of the electricity cables, due to the building size.
The shocking news was that Ergon’s charge for this would be $10,000, which would take all of the restoration group’s money at the time.
Another option was to dismantle the building, for which locals offered their services to help.
When asked what they would charge for their services, apparently according to Virginia Donavon, it was “the price of a carton of beer.”
The historic building finally reached its new home location on 11 November 1988 and was officially opened on 10 December 1989.
Years later, the initial commitment to maintaining the historic building is being adhered to, as was the agreement by the restoration group.
As Ginni said recently: “The church has become an icon in Port Douglas.”
All up, it is quite a story.
I’m off for a quick walk up the aisle, so for now it’s Gazza signing out.
Send your stories to gazza@cairnslocalnews.com.au
