Church

The National Monuments Service's description

In pastureland and roughly centrally located on the W side of Kilreekill village. Named 'Old Chapel' on the 1838 edition of the OS 6-inch map and indicated as a roofed building aligned roughly E-W. It stood immediately to the S of a later 'R.C. Chapel' (GA098-137003-). On the 1933 edition of the map it is named 'Chapel (in Rns.) and only a short section of it S side-wall is depicted. It was separated from the later church by the boundary wall of the associated graveyard (GA098-137002-). It was dedicated to St Richella, possibly a sister of St Patrick or St Finnian (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 395). According to the OS Letters (O'Flanagan 1927a, Vol. 1, 482-3) the only surviving remnant of it that survived in 1838 was a wall (L c. 10m) 'apparently modern' in which there was 'a pointed archway constructed of rude stones and lime and sand mortar.' The arch was 'nearly 9 [c. 2.7m] feet high and 7 [2.1m] feet broad at the ground'. No visible surface trace of it survives. A number of graves now occupy this area of the graveyard. According to local information, the wall was knocked down years ago and the stone from it was used as building material.

Compiled by: Olive Alcock

Date of upload: 8 April 2020

References

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.

Gwynn, A. and Hadcock, R.N. 1970 (Reprint 1988) Medieval religious houses of Ireland. Dublin. Irish Academic Press.