Church

The National Monuments Service's description

On a slight knoll on a terrace on valley side, in rolling grassland. There are good views in all directions. According to Carrigan (1905, vol. 2, 327), 'The parish church of Clonetubrid disappeared very long ago. It stood at the south end of the modern churchyard of Clonetubrid, immediately outside the churchyard wall, where its site presents the appearance of a half dismantled rath'. There is no visible trace of the church at ground level. A finial (H 0.59m; Wth 0.61m) from a church of 10th/11th-century date, was originally loose in the graveyard and was subsequently incorporated in the stone structure covering the holy well (KK009-044004-) (Carrigan 1905, vol. 2, 329; Waldron, 1959, 50). This butterfly finial is decorated with a winged figure in relief and is illustrated and described by Ó Carragáin (2010, 42-3, fig. 41:6) as being worn with, ‘a boss at the right of the central standing, robed figure and there may originally have been another at the left. If so the composition is very reminiscent of the pediment of the Romanesque doorway at Roscrea Cathedral, where a standing, robed Christ is flanked by rosettes’. The finial may be from an early medieval church at this location. The OS Letters (1839) mention that the stone structure covering the holy well had a cut-stone facing on the exterior, but these stones were robbed for building material (O'Flanagan ed. 1930, vol. 1, 90-91 (30-31)). It is possible that these cut stones were originally from the church. However, Ó Carragáin (2010, 308) suggests that the finial may have come from the early medieval church (KK013-023001-) in Freshford, c. 3km to the S.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 6 February 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.

Ó Carragáin, T. 2010 Churches in early medieval Ireland: architecture, ritual and memory. New Haven and London. Yale University Press.

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

Waldron, T. 1959 Tobar a'dhroo or The Hermit's Well, Clonetubrid. Old Kilkenny Review 11, 49-52.