Church

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated at the crest of the S-facing slope of an E-W ridge. This church is under the patronage of St Lebhan or Laobhán of Ballyovey, Co. Mayo, whose church is at Kilkeeran, Co. Mayo (MA099-025001-). In Monaghan Laobhán was remembered on the 1st of June at a placed called Áth Éigis, which may have been an alternative name of Killeevan (Ceall Laobháin) where the saint’s name has been anglicised to Laban (Ó Riain 2011, 390-1). The church was probably a chapel-of ease to the parish church of Galloon, which is in Co. Fermanagh (Foley and McHugh 2014, vol. 1, Pt. 2, 750-7). As a chapel it does not occur in the ecclesiastical lists and the names of the clergy are not recorded. Galloon was a large parish in the Middle Ages, which was only broken up in 1806 (Shirley 1879, 327) when the parishes of Kilkeevan, Aghabog, Currin, and Ematris, also known as Edergole, were established in Co. Monaghan by the Church of Ireland. It is not known for certain how many medieval churches there may have been in the Dartry part of Galloon, but this church and that at Drumswords (MO017-033001-) are both now within Killeevan parish.

The W wall (ext. L 7.4m) and the adjoining part (L 2.5m) of the S wall of the church (int. dims c. 18.5m E-W; 5.75m N-S) survive, but only sections of the footings of the other walls can be traced. There is a narrow window with a re-used cusped ogee window-head in the W wall but the window is not centrally placed in the complete gable, which has no evidence of a belfry. The church is within a subcircular or D-shaped graveyard (dims c. 50m NW-SE; c. 45m NE-SW) defined by a scarp (Wth 2.2m; ext. H 1.5m) and a slight outer ditch (Wth of base 0.5m; ext. D 0.1m) SW-W, which might be the only part of the original perimeter surviving, although its line merges into a field bank E-SW. The perimeter is formed by straight scarps and outer ditches at NW (L c. 25m) and NE (L c. 35m) with a gateway to a roadway where they meet at N. The headstone inscriptions, with an array of mortuary and trade symbols, have been recorded (McCaughey et al. 1982, 131-40) and date largely from 1714 to c. 1800. An analysis of the headstones (Mytum and Evans 2002) concludes that the disc-head form reached its apogee in the 1740s to be replaced by the rectangular form later in the century with the more prestigious horizontal ledger or graveslab occurring throughout the century. The area S and W of the church was used for the earlier headstones with later examples in the E and N and the peripheral areas.

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Monaghan' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1986). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of revised upload: 29 November 2016

References

McCaughey, Rev. H., McGourty, Rev. M. and Rev. P. Mulligan 1982 Graveyard inscriptions: Kileevan and Aghabog. Clogher Record, vol. 11, No. 1, 119-49.

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

Anon. 1913 Notes on Some Episcopal Appointments in Ireland. Archivium Hibernicum 2, 166-72.

Mytum, H. and Evans, R. 2002 The Evolution of an Irish Graveyard during the Eighteenth Century: The Example of Killeevan, Co. Monaghan. The Journal of Irish Archaeology 11, 131-46.

Davies, O. 1940 Killeevan Abbey, Co. Monaghan. Ulster Journal of Archaeology 3, 72-3.

Ó Riain, P. 2011 A dictionary of Irish Saints. Dublin. Four Courts Press.