Church

The National Monuments Service's description

In the NW corner of a graveyard (KE108-002----). The remains of a rectangular church (int. dims. 11.3m E-W; 4.65m N-S) which comprises heavily ivy-clad walls of local sandstone with shaped quoins. The external SW corner is collapsed. The church is entered through a doorway (int. H 2.24m; int. Wth 1.24m; D 0.77m) near the W end of the S wall; the doorway contains a draw-bar socket. The door surround consists of a round-headed arch with five well-cut, red sandstone voussoirs. Diagonal tooling was noted on these voussoirs and three are decorated on the soffits with two incised bands in false relief. There is a central window in the E gable with a narrow round-headed light (H 0.99m; Wth 0.2m). There is a ruined window ope at the E end of the S wall, with a narrow light (Wth 0.19m), which, according to Bigger (1898, 315) was 'square-headed'. The top of a round-headed window ope is visible in the W gable, externally. A lintelled water stoup (original D c. 0.19m) is situated on the E side of the doorway; the top and the rear of the stoup niche have collapsed into the drawbar-socket. There is a lintelled wall-press (int. H 2.68m) at the E end of the N wall.
This appears to be originally a smaller 12th-century Romanesque church which was rebuilt on a slightly larger scale in the 15th century (Lynch 1898, 323-4). The round-arched doorway is Romanesque in style but would originally have been located in the centre of the W wall. The attic window in the W gable, to light a loft, is a feature of 15th-century churches. Lynch (ibid.) suggests that the original church was as small as 6.4m by 4.1m. The interior of the church has long been used as a burial ground. According to Lansdowne (1937, 144), this church is indicated as roofed in the Carew Survey map of 1600. There is a hermitage (KE108-003----) is c. 350m to the NE.

Compiled by: Elizabeth Byrne, Ursula Egan and Sheila Ronan, Archaeological Survey Unit, University College, Cork.

Date of upload: 30 May 2011

References

Bigger, F.J. 1898 The lake and church of Kilmakillage, the ancient church, holywell and bullan stone of Temple Feaghna and the holy well and shrine at Saint Finan's County Kerry. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 28, 314-17, 323-4.