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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Church

Ardagh (Tirawley By.), County Mayo, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Church, Ardagh, County Mayo, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Ardagh (Tirawley By.)
County
Mayo
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Church (in Ruins)
Latest-edition OS map
Church (in Ruins)
Coordinates
54.09763, -9.22570
SMR number
MA039-015001-

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1753 map "Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae" (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1753 · Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

Located in the SW quadrant of a graveyard (MA039-015002-).
A ruined medieval church (6.1m N-S; 13.3m E-W) on a WNW-ESE alignment, constructed of medium-sized random mortared limestone rubble. When inspected in 1996, the W gable (H 3.1m; Wth 1.2m) survived relatively intact, the N and S walls (Wth 0.8m) stood to a height of 1.3m, but only low remnants of the E gable (max. H 0.4m) survived. The basal courses of the walls incorporated a number of large blocks, with one particularly large, upright slab at the SW corner of the W gable. There was a break (Wth c. 2m) towards the W end of the S wall which probably marked the location of a doorway.
In 2008/09 unauthorized works took place at the church during an graveyard clean-up scheme. The walls were heavily pointed with cement mortar. The top of the W gable was rebuilt and the top of the N and S walls squared off and cemented over. The low remnants of the E gable were used as a foundation for a reconstruction of that wall to a height of c. 2m, incorporating three pointed arched alcoves, which bare no relation to the original form of the wall. As a consequence, details of the original fabric of the wall are now largely concealed, and the church is no longer recognisable as a medieval structure.
Within the church, three contiguous grave plots, roughly outlined by settings of low stones, abut the inner face of the S wall, and a grave covered by two horizontal stone slabs and marked by an headstone with an 18th-century inscription, abuts the N wall towards its E end.

Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy

Date of upload: 13 March 2018

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
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