Church

The National Monuments Service's description

In pasture within a graveyard (LF023-057002-). In 1406 Charles Maccarmuyc was assigned the 'rectories’ of Taghshinny and Taghsheenod (LF023-097----) (Cal. papal letters 1904, vol. 6, 86) and in 1427 Carbricus Y [F]ergail a priest in the diocese of Ardagh held the 'perpetual vicarage’ (ibid. vol. 7, 571). In 1542 the rectory was leased to Walter Tirrell of Dublin (Nicholls 1994, vol. 1, 38). The church is depicted on an early 17th-century map of Moydow barony (BL, Cotton MS Augustus I.ii.28) and it is recorded on the terrier of the Down Survey (1655-6) map of Taghsheenod parish as the 'Ruined Church on the Gleabe Land' (NLI, MS 719).
This late-medieval, ivy-covered parish church (ext. dims. c. 18.2m E-W; c. 8.3m N-S; wall T 0.9m) is constructed of rubble limestone with alternating long and short undressed quoins. The doorway is at the W end of the N wall. Only its lower chamfered jambstones, punch dressed with drafted margins, survive in situ. A limestone two-light ogee-headed window with decorated spandrels is visible in the E gable and there is a narrow single-light window in the S end of the W wall. Bar-holes for an iron grill are visible in the jambs of the latter window. The remains of a single-light window at first-floor level in the centre of the W gable and beam-holes on its internal face suggest the former presence of a two-storey priest's residence, or less likely a gallery, at the W end of the church.

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 5 June 2013

References

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.

Cal. papal letters - Calendar of entries in the papal registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: papal letters, 1198-1484 [etc.] (London, 1893-)

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)

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.