Church

The National Monuments Service's description

On a N-S ridge between the Dinin river valley to the W, Douglas river valley to the S, and a small valley to the E. The church occupies one of the irregular humps at the S end of the ridge and has a commanding view across all three valleys. Centrally placed within a roughly rectangular graveyard (KK010-069002-) with a raised burial area. According to Carrigan (1905, vol. 3, 454-5) this was the parish church of Muckalee, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. A rectangular church (max. ext. dims. c. 22m E-W; c. 6.6m N-S) built of well-coursed masonry, aligned ESE-WNW (described as E-W for convenience). The internal floor level of the church is significantly built up. Carrigan (ibid.) states that the church was divided into nave and chancel but that, ‘the dividing wall is now almost levelled with the ground’. There is a segmental-headed doorway embrasure (Wth 1.35m) in the centre of the W gable. Most of the N and S wall of the church are no longer upstanding, though the W end of the S wall (H 2m; L int. 3.5m) survives, and elsewhere wall-footings survive. The E gable has a base-batter (H 1.2m; Wth 0.12m). The 1839 OS Letters describes a single-light ogee-headed window, ‘four feet six inches [1.36m] high in front, one foot [o.3m] wide at bottom, and ten inches [0.25] wide at the springing of the arch’ in the E gable, though only the splayed embrasure now survives (O’Flanagan 1930, vol. 1, 16-17). In the S wall, 0.28m from the E gable, part of the E embrasure of a window survives. At the W end of the S wall there is a double-splayed single-light window at ground level. The walls at the W end of the church are slightly thicker and the remains of stones projecting from the surviving W end of the S wall, c. 0.6-0.8m above the top of the window, suggest that the W end of the church had a stone vault and perhaps functioned as a residential tower. There is a large buttress (L 1.83m; D 1.86m) 4m from the W gable, supporting the S wall. There are a number of architectural fragments strewn around the graveyard, including a wedge-shaped stone step which suggests the church had a spiral stair. According to Carrigan (ibid.) the W gable was surmounted by a ‘square perforated belfry’. Given the close proximity to a church and graveyard seven trenches were opened in 2004 in advance of house building, however, no archaeological remains were found.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 16 November 2016

References

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

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.