Church

The National Monuments Service's description

This is the parish church of Drum Dreastan in the diocese of Elphin, which was conserved to its original height in 1987-9. It is situated on a low hillock in an undulating landscape. The church is a rectangular structure (ext. dims 19.1m E-W; 7.85m N-S) with an extension (ext. dims 11.4m E-W; 4.55m) added to the W end of the N wall which has a modern round-headed doorway in the W wall. The reconstructed round-headed doorway of the church is towards the W end of the S wall and there is a round-headed window towards its E end. There is a round-headed window in the E gable and a reconstructed window in the W gable, but the N wall is featureless. The windows and doorway would indicate a 12th century date.
The church is at the S end of a rectangular graveyard (RO051-065002-) (dims 72m N-S; 52m E-W) defined by masonry walls and it has been extended to the N and W. A cross-slab (RO051-065004-) (Wth 0.44m; visible H 0.51m; max. T 0.19m) being re-used as a grave-marker was identified by M.B. Timoney N of the church in 2015. On the flat face it has an incised cross (H 0.49m; span 0.38m) with expanded terminals within a moulded frame.
The graveyard is within a possible oval ecclesiastical enclosure (RO051-065003-) (dims c. 170m E-W; c. 140m N-S) defined by field banks or walls, most of which have been removed except for a small section at W. The perimeter of the enclosure was archaeologically tested (99E0511) W of the church (Swan 2000a) and throughout its SW quadrant (04E0069) (Byrne 2007b), but no related material was recorded. The enclosure is cut by an E-W road just S of the medieval church, from which a road runs S. The conserved basal courses of a T-shaped Roman Catholic church (ext. dims 21.7m N-S; 8.6m E-W) with the transept (ext. dims 19.7m E-W; 8.6m N-S) at S is in the N part of the old graveyard, and St Bridget's Well (RO051-066---) is c. 110m NE of the medieval church. The site of unclassified castle (RO051-067----) is c. 75m to the SE within the ecclesiastical enclosure.

See the attached image of the E window (001) and a general view (003) from SE.

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of revised upload: 3 July 2015

References

Swan, R. 2000a Drum Heritage Centre, Drum. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 1999: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 269, No. 767. Bray. Wordwell.

Byrne, M. 2007b Balrea. No archaeological significance. in I. Bennett (ed.) Excavations 2004: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 372, No. 1435. Bray. Wordwell.