Church

The National Monuments Service's description

In flat grassland within the former demesne of Kilcornan House (GA095-056001-). On inspection in August 1983 this well-preserved medieval parish church, rectangular in plan (int. dims. 13.2m E-W; 10.5m N-S; wall T 0.84m), was undergoing restoration works that involved the insertion of a new floor, roof and windows. The four walls survived pretty much intact and were constructed of neatly laid rectangular limestone blocks with dressed sandstone quoinstones. A plinth was visible at the base of the external face of the S wall and internally at the base of the E gable. The main architectural features included a pointed arch doorway in the S side-wall, single-light transitional windows at the E end of this wall and in and the E gable. There were two small rectangular windows, one set above the other, in the W gable and these together with corresponding beam slots in the N and S side-walls indicated the former presence of a loft at this end of the church. A cross base at the E end belongs to a 19th-century cross now outside the church that is dedicated to and was erected by the Redington family (the former owners of Kilcornan House); it is dated 1899. Redington (1912, 179-80) records that a stone plaque depicting the Assumption (originally from Lavally House) also once lay within the interior of the church; it is now housed in the porch of the Catholic church in Clarinbridge (see GA095-069001-). Redington (ibid.) also noted that a 'small font and holy-oil slab' here also derived from Lavally. A possible graveyard (GA095-059001-) is associated. A castle site (GA095-056----) lies c. 310m to the NNE. (Westropp 1919, 178; O’Flanagan 1927, Vol. 1, 289, 291)

Compiled by: Galway Archaeological Survey, UCG

Date of upload: 21 February 2020

References

Redington, M. 1911-12 Notes on the Ordnance Survey Letters relating to the barony of Dunkellin; ii Stradbally parish. Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society 7, 171-183.

Westropp, T.J. 1919a Notes on several forts in Dunkellin and other parts of southern Co. Galway. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 49, 167-86.

O'Flanagan, Rev. M. (Compiler) 1927 Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Galway collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1839. Typescript in 3 vols. Bray.