Church

The National Monuments Service's description

Located in an undulating landscape on the floor of the NW-SE Glenade valley. Depicted as a roofed structure (dims c. 10m E-W; c. 5m N-S) described as 'R. C. Chapel' in italic lettering on the 1835 ed. of the OS 6-inch map. It is within a rectangular enclosure (dims c. 30m N-S: c. 30m E-W) that is known as Kilroosk graveyard, named after the townland just to the E (Faughnan 1943). Cill Ruscach under the patronage of St Lugidus is on a 17th century list of church sites in north Leitrim (Mooney 1946a, 65). Lughaidh of Kilroosk is known only from this list, although his feastday is recorded in the martyrologies under the 12th February (Ó Riain 2011, 409).

The W wall of randomly coursed limestone masonry (L 6.1m; H 2m) and a fragment of the N wall (L 3m; H 1m) is all that remains of the church. A bullaun stone (L 0.53m; H 0.2m) with an oval basin (dims 0.4m x 0.3m; D 0.1m) is built into the base of a cupboard on the outer face of the W wall. The church is within a square graveyard (dims c. 30m E-W; c. 30m N-S) defined by masonry walls and contains mostly 20th-century headstones. There is a record of a stone with the carving of an animal called 'Dobhar Chu' (Tohall 1948, 127-9) from this graveyard, which has many folk tales associated with it, but it has been missing since c. 1918.

The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Leitrim' compiled by Michael J. Moore (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2003). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of revised upload: 1 January 2016

References

Faughnan, D. 1943 ITA topographical and general survey. Ballinamore Library, Co Leitrim, (file no. 140). Unpublished.

Tohall, P. 1948 The Dobhar-Chu tombstones of Glenade, Co. Leitrim. (Cemeteries of Congbhail and Cill-Ruisc). Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 78, 127-9.

Ó Riain, P. 2011 A dictionary of Irish Saints. Dublin. Four Courts Press.

Mooney, C. 1946a Topographical fragments from the Franciscan Library. Celtica 1, 64-85.