Church

The National Monuments Service's description

19th-century Church of Ireland church ruins stands in SE corner of a rectangular shaped graveyard (LI039-102003-) with Bruree Castle (LI039-102001-) ruins to W. No surface remains visible of site of levelled church (Teampall Mainchín/Saint Mainchin's Church) dedicated to St. Munchin that was probably attached to the E face of the building annotated Bruree Castle on 1840 ed. OSi 6-inch map. This castle may have been the residential tower or the Dean's Castle of the medieval church and was the possession of the Bishop of Limerick. The church and graveyard stands in the townland of Ballynoe (An Baile Nua), in the parish of Bruree (Brú Rí/abode of kings), diocese of Limerick, barony of Connello Upper (Conallaigh Uachtaracha). The graveyard stands on high ground overlooking the River Maigue and the village of Bruree to N and E. St. Munchin's holy Well (LI039-114----) lies 130m to the NE. Church, graveyard and Bruree Castle depicted standing on Glebe land on the 1840 ed. OSi 6-inch map. The patron saint of Bruree was St. Munchin, whose feastday falls on the 2nd of January (Begley 1906, 71). In 1302 the 'Vicarage of Brunrry (Bruree) was listed in the Ecclesiastical Taxation of the Diocese of Limerick where it was valued at £5 6s. 8. with the tithe valued at 10s. 8d. (Begley 1906, 189; Cal. doc. Ire.). In 1418 the Taxation records of the Deanery of Limerick described the site as 'The church of Bruree; the dean is rector and presents the vicar' (Begley 1906, 262). In 1503, 'The venerable Ugo, alias Villae Leys, bound himself to the Apostolic Chamber for the first fruits of the perpetual vicarages of Brury (Bruree) and Soyndroin (Shandrum), in the dioceses of Limerick and Cloyne, vacant in a certain manner, to be united to the rectorship of the church of Clohynarwltey, alias Doondonnell, for the life of Ugo' (Begley 1906, 312). In Father Jasper White's late 17th century List of the Churches of the Diocese of Limerick, the parish church of Bruree, situated in the Deanery of Kilmallock is described as belonging to the 'Dean of Limerick, dedicated to St. Munchin, Bishop' (Begley 1906, 446).
Westropp (1904-5, 422) recorded the following details about St Mainchin's (Munchin's) Church; 'Brughrighursi, 1201. Held by Keynsham, 1237. In 1242, Brunry was seized from John de Marisco, and his wife Mabel, grand-child of Ric [hard]. de Burgh; it was restored to her (C.S.P.I, No. 2584). In 1289 it was held under warrant of Maurice and Eva de Lesse [Lacy], by R[o]bert de Mariscis (Plea R, xviii Ed. I, Cal. i., pp. 52, 80). In 1318 Reginald, its vicar, was robbed by Patrick de Lees (ib., 123 of xi Edward II, m. 36). Brury dedicated to St. Mainchin, 1410, D.S. (A), map 32, 41. Site - The modern I C. church is on the old site'.
Residential tower (LI039-102001-) of the Bishop of Limerick, and possibly the vicars residence or vicarage of 15th century date stands at the W end of the levelled medieval parish church of St. Mainchin/Munchin. The tower stands on high ground overlooking overlooking the River Maigue and the village of Bruree to the N and E. Castle depicted standing adjacent to the glebe land of the medieval parish church on the 17th century Down Survey map of Connello Barony (Hib. Reg.). On this map the 13th century Anglo-Norman castle of Bruree (LI039-097----) is shown standing to the NW with the annotation 'The castle plow & mannor of Brury'. On the 1840 ed. OSi 6-inch map this castle is depicted standing inside the glebeland of the church, closely matching the location on the Down Survey barony map. In 1700 Lewis Prytherch, Vicar of Bruree, described the church, glebe and castle as follows; 'The Rectorie belongs to the Deanerie of Limerick; and is, I thinke, part of the corps of it, the Dean presents to ye vicarage, & he income & tythes of the parish is betwixt them. There is in all the Down surveigh 23 acres, 1 rood & 16 perches of Gleab Land; There is a large tall old castle standinge by the church, & it belongs to the Rector or Dean of Liimerick, and onely 5 acres of the said Gleabe yt are next to it belong to it as ye people say & witness. The other 17 acres belong to the vicar; and they lie in three pieces' (Jackson 1945, 150). Lewis (1837) described the site as follows; 'It is a rectory & vicarage, in the diocese of Limerick; the rectory forms part of the union and corps of the deanery of Limerick, and the vicarage is in the patronage of the Dean. The tithes amount to £600.4., of which two-thirds are payable to the dean and the remainder to the vicar. The church is a neat edifice, in the early English style, with a square tower and octangular spire of hewn stone; it was built near the site of the old church, by aid of a gift of £800 from the late Board of First Fruits, in 1812. Attached to the rectory is a glebe of 7a. 1r. 8p.; the glebe belonging to the vicarage comprises 15 acres. Adjoining the church is a large and strong castle in a tolerably perfect state, erected by the Knights Templars in the 12th century'.

See attached ASI aerial photograph ASIAP – 372/26, 27 on 10/05/2003; 321/5, 6 on 05/10/2002.

Compiled and revised by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of revised upload: 26 October 2022

References

Hibernia Regnum: A set of 214 barony maps of Ireland dating to the period AD 1655-59. The original parish maps have been lost but the Hibernia Regnum maps are preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris (Goblet 1932, v-x). Photographic facsimiles of these maps were published by the Ordnance Survey, Southampton in 1908.

Jackson, R. W. 1945 Lewis Prytherch’s manuscript. North Munster Antiquarian Journal 4, no. 4, 143-51.

Lewis, S. 1837 A topographical dictionary of Ireland, 2 vols. London. Lewis and Co.

Cal. doc. Ire. - Calendar of documents relating to Ireland 1171-1307, ed. H.S. Sweetman (5 vols., London, 1875-86).

Begley, J. 1906 The Diocese of Limerick ancient and medieval. Dublin.

Westropp, T.J. 1904-5 A survey of the ancient churches of Co. Limerick. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 25C, 327-479.

ASIAP - Archaeological Survey of Ireland Aerial Photographs (c. 1996 - c. 2010).