Church

The National Monuments Service's description

On a slightly rising area above the River Goul flood plain, in rolling grassland. There is no associated graveyard, though burials (KK008-090002-) were recorded within the church (Carrigan 1905, vol. 2, 300). A tower house (KK008-087----), Foulkscourt Castle, is located c. 730m to the NW. According to Moore (1874-9, vol. 1, 37-8) Foulkscourt church, ‘seems to have been built for the use of the Castellan of the Castle of that name and his retainers about the year 1460 or so’. A rectangular church (ext. dims. 20.8m E-W, 9.7m N-S), orientated E-W, built of roughly coursed limestone rubble with a slight external base-batter (H of side walls c. 3m; H of gable c. 6m). There are two doorways, one a pointed doorway (Wth 1.4m) with punch-dressed tooling towards the W end of the N wall (T 0.95m) and the other roughly opposite in the S wall. That in the S wall had been broken out by 1839 when it is described in the OS Letters (O’Flanagan ed. 1930, vol. 1, 149 (49)) as a breach. This was subsequently blocked-up and forms an internal recess (Wth 2.1m). According to Moore (ibid.), both doorways ‘are totally removed for the sake of the cut stone’. The church was lit by two single-light windows in the N wall, one at either end of the wall, and two opposing windows in the S wall. The single-light windows at the E end are both ogee-headed with an external square hood-moulding according to Carrigan (1905, vol. 2, 300), though only the head of the one in the S wall survives. Those at the W end of the church are narrow flat-headed windows. There is a two-light ogee-headed window with external square hood-moulding in the E gable. On the internal face of the W gable there is a ledge which probably supported a gallery.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 16 January 2018

References

O'Flanagan, Rev. M. (Compiler) 1930 Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Kilkenny collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1839. Bray.

Moore, Very Rev. Canon 1874-9 Parochial papers. Transactions of the Ossory Archaeological Society 1, 23-40, 45.

Carrigan, Rev. W. 1905 (Reprint 1981) The history and antiquities of the diocese of Ossory, 4 vols. Kilkenny. Roberts Books and Wellbrook Press.