Church

The National Monuments Service's description

On level ground in pasture, within a graveyard (LF009-026002-). In 1562 a lease, including the rectory of 'Killoe in Annale', was granted to William Pieres (Nicholls 1994, vol. 2, 52). Later in 1609 it was leased to Adam Loftus (Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, 140) and in 1629 Thomas Ferrall was listed as vicar of Killoe church (Morgan 2000, 44). Depicted on the Down Survey (1655-6) map of Killoe parish on glebe land, near the S bank of the Camlin River (NLI, MS 719), and also on an early 17th-century map of Longford barony (BL, Cotton MS Augustus I.ii.24). According to local folklore, 'There was a Catholic Church there one time, but when Cromwell came to this country, the soldiers burned it, and afterwards there was a Protestant church built on the same foundation' (Devaney 1981, 6). No visible surface trace of the medieval church survives. The 19th-century church (C of I) dedicated to St Catherine in the centre of the graveyard may have been built on or close to its site.

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 5 June 2013

References

Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I - Irish patent rolls of James I: facsimile of the Irish record commissioners' calendar prepared prior to 1830, with foreword by M.C. Griffith (Irish Manuscripts Commission, Dublin, 1966)

NLI, MS 719 - National Library of Ireland, The parish maps of the Down Survey of Co. Longford attested by W. Petty under date 1657. Copied by Daniel O'Brien. A set of 22 maps with accompanying terriers, 1786-7. Dublin.

Morgan, K. 2000 Cill Eó; the church of the yew, our faith story. Athlone. Killoe Parish Pastoral Council.

Devaney, O. Rev. 1981 Killoe: history of a county Longford parish. Longford. St. Mel's Diocesan Trust.

British Library, Cotton Manuscripts, Augustus I. Charts of the baronies of Granard, Rathcline, Longford, Ardagh, Shrule and Moydow, County Longford. London. (microfilm, NLI p. 1364)

Nicholls, K.W. (ed.) 1994 The Irish fiants of the Tudor sovereigns during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Philip & Mary, and Elizabeth I, 4 vols. Dublin. Éamonn de Búrca for Edmund Burke Publisher.