Church

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on a S-facing slope of a NW-SE spur. Kilmainhamwood was a preceptory of the Knights Hospitallers of Kilmainham in Dublin, said to have been founded by the Prestons of Grangegorman, but there is no record of preceptors, so the manor may have been leased out from an early period (Hadcock 1964, 129; Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 337-8). At the Suppression in 1541 the manor was leased to James Fleming of Slane. At that time there was no rector, although there was a priest, but while a ruined castle is mentioned there is no reference to a church (White 1943, 110-1). Kilmainhamwood is not recorded by Ussher (1622) (Erlington 1847-64, 1, lxxxvii-xcvii) or Dopping (1682-5) (Ellison 1973) as a church in the deanery of Slane or Kells. The Church of Ireland church was built in 1803 (Lewis 1837, 2, 170) on an old site, but this building is now removed without trace. It is within a subrectangular graveyard (dims c. 63m NW-SE; c. 57m NE-SW) defined by stone walls on every side except the NW where there is a low bank and wire fence. A scarp (Wth c. 3m; H 1-1.5m) running W from the E angle of the graveyard may have provided the original limit of the church precinct.
There is a cross-slab, a font, and a graveslab (L 2.08m; Wth 1.04m; T 0.12m) with a representation of a man and a woman, dating to c. 1690 (King 1987, 294) in the graveyard. There is also a record of a sheela-na-gig that might be from this graveyard (Guest 1936, 118), but it has not been recognised. The sandstone cross-slab (dims 0.46m x 0.13m; H 1.08m) has a rectangular hole (dims 0.14m x 0.12m) near the top, and on the E side is a ringed cross in relief. The shaft and arms (Wth 11-12cm) are delineated by two raised lines and the two raised lines of the ring (int. diam. 0.16m; ext. diam. 0.25m) connect the lines of the shaft and arms. The sandstone font is rectangular (ext. dims 0.58m x 0.58m; H 0.26-0.31) with the corners chamfered away. The circular basin (diam. 0.41m; D 0.16m) has no drain-hole and it was probably abandoned because the fracture on the base reduced its size.

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 31 July, 2014

References

Erlington, C. R. (ed.) 1847-64 The whole works of the most Reverend James Ussher. 17 vols. Hodges and Smith, Dublin

White, N.B. 1943 Extents of Irish monastic possessions, 1540-1541. Dublin. Irish Manuscripts Commission.

Ellison, Rev. C. C. 1971-5 Bishop Dopping's Visitation Book 1682-5, Ríocht na Mídhe, 5, 1, 28-39; 5, 2, 3-13; 5, 3, 3-11; 5, 4, 98-103; 6, 1, 3-13.

King, H.A. 1987 Seventeenth-century effigial sculpture in the north Meath area. In E. Rynne (ed.), Figures from the past: studies on figurative art in Christian Ireland in honour of Helen M. Roe, 283-307. Dun Laoghaire. Glendale Press.

Gwynn, A. and Hadcock, R.N. 1970 (Reprint 1988) Medieval religious houses of Ireland. Dublin. Irish Academic Press.

Hadcock, N. 1964 The origin of the Augustinian Order in Meath. Ríocht na Mídhe 3, 124-31.

Guest, E.M. 1936 Irish sheela na gigs in 1935. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 66, 107-29.