Church

The National Monuments Service's description

In a sheltered hollow in high (between 500’ and 600’ contours) rough grazing and limestone pavement, and within an extensive multiperiod field system (CL009-084001-). Indicated, but not labelled, on both the 1840 and 1916 editions of the OS 6-inch map. Swinfen (1992, 115) quotes an 1879 description by the Rev. Philip Dwyer: ‘The walls are built with very small stones, the gables are rounded at the corners, the roof seems to have been arched like a bridge. There is a bench of stones all round the inside of the walls, evidently used for seating the congregation. The old simple stone altar still stands.’ Westropp (1900-02, 134) subsequently described the monument as, ‘A rudely built late structure, all features destroyed; no trace of the alleged stone roof. Swinfen (op. cit.) also wrote, ‘The church was said to have been in use in the penal times, and from its situation that is easy to believe.’

A very poorly preserved rectangular structure is orientated E-W (int. dims. L 10.6; Wth 4m) and is constructed from roughly coursed rectangular blocks and flag stones. The W gable wall, though damaged (H c. 2.6m) is the best preserved of the surviving walls; the E gable wall is reduced to ground level while only the lower courses of the N and S sidewalls survive (max. H c. 1.5m).
The church is ‘sandwiched’ between two slightly larger rectangular enclosures; one abutting at N (est. L c. 16m E-W; Wth c. 8.2m N-S) and one abutting at S (est. L 19m E-W; Wth c. 10m N-S), both defined by drystone walls.
An enclosure and hut site (CL010-230---- and CL010-224----) are located c. 107m to the NNW and another field system (CL010-231----) is located c. 70m to the NE.

See attachment: CL010-011----_01 Aerial view of monument from NW. Note abutting enclosures. (Markus Casey, 2007)

Summary by: Gearoid Conroy and Lynda McCormack

Date of upload: 8 December 2022