Church

The National Monuments Service's description

At SE edge of Dursey Island in a graveyard (CO126-012003-) are the poorly preserved remains of a church with chancel (7.47m E-W; 5.58m N-S) and nave (9.55m E-W; 8.8m N-S). Only the lower courses are preserved except at the E end of the chancel which has opposing windows in N and S walls. The chancel extended to the E with a clear masonry break 2.63m from the nave junction. There is a late 18th century stone-built vault built on the line of the W wall. It has been suggested that this church may have replaced the earlier Kilmichael church (CO126-009002-) as a chapel-of-ease when Dursey joined to Killaconenagh (Lunham 1908, 74). According to the soldier-writer and native of Dursey, Philip O'Sullivan-Beare, writing in 1621, it was a 'monastery, built by Bonaventura, a Spanish Bishop, but dismantled by pirates' (Byrne 1903, 156).

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 1: West Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1992, no. 3107). In this instance the entry has been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Date of revision: 11 October 2017

References

Lunham, T.A. 1908 Bishop Dive Downes' visitation of his diocese 1699. Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 14, 66-80, 141-9.

Byrne, M.J. (ed.) 1903 (Reprint 1970) Ireland under Elizabeth. Chapters towards a history of Ireland in the reign of Elizabeth being a portion of the history of Catholic Ireland by Don Philip O'Sullivan Bear. Dublin. New York.