Church

The National Monuments Service's description

A church at Monaghan town is not known before the seventeenth century, and a church is not depicted on Bartlett’s map of 1602-03, or the Blaney map of c. 1611-13. However, a parish church of Rackwallace had been established in the town by the outbreak of the Rebellion in 1641 (Shirley 1879, 309-10), and when bishop Spottiswood describes the church of Rackwallace as ‘new built but indifferently repaired’ (Leslie 1929, 228-33) a church in the town is intended rather than at Rackwallace (MO014-014001-) c. 6 km to the SE. Rushe (1916, 34) asserts that there was no church in the town before 1725, although there are records of the Blaney family burying there from 1629 (Mahoney 1907 158). It is possible that the church was rebuilt during the eighteenth century.
The present Church of Ireland church of St Patrick was built in 1830-35 when the Ancketill graveslab (MO009-060011-) was recovered from the foundations (Shirley 1879, 310). This graveslab is now preserved in the porch of the present church at the base of its tower. The old church, of which nothing remains, is depicted on the 1835 ed. of the OS 6-inch map just N of the present building as a smaller structure (dims c. 20m E-W; c. 10m N-S) with a projection at the W end. It is described on the map as the ‘Old Church’ and is at the N edge of a D-shaped graveyard (dims c. 50m E-W; c. 40m N-S) with straight sides at the E and S where it is defined by buildings but the perimeter is curved W-N where it is defined now by railings. Archaeological testing (03E1672) undertaken in 2003 prior to the erection of a memorial to the victims of the Monaghan bombings in 1974 located c. 8m W of the perimeter of the graveyard exposed both disarticulated human remains and one in situ skeleton oriented in an east-west direction. The remains are part of the graveyard and were preserved in situ (McCarthy 2006).

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 16 November, 2106

References

Shirley, E.P. 1879 (Reprint 1988) The history of the county of Monaghan. London. Pickering.

Leslie, J.B. 1929 Clogher clergy and parishes. Enniskillen.

McCarthy, M. 2006 Church Square, Monaghan. Burials. In I. Bennett (ed.) Excavations 2003: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 400-1, No. 1492. Bray, Wordwell

Mahony, P. G. 1907 Glaslough, Parish of Donagh. Journal of the Association for the Preservation of the Memorials of the Dead, Ireland. vol. 7, 157-8.