Church

The National Monuments Service's description

National Monument No. 673. Stone church dedicated to St. Ruadhán who died in 584 and was referred to as the 'lamp of Lothra', his feastday was held on the 15th of April when the 'cuckoo began to call' (Ó Riain 2011, 541-2). He was the son of Fearghas Bearn of the Uí Dhuach clan from Fassadinin and Crannagh baronies, Co. Kilkenny (ibid.). In the Annals of Innisfallen under the year AD 1037 it is recorded that 'Cu Chaille, son of Cennetaig, King of Musgraige, with his son was slain in front of the stone church at Lorrha after he had been taken from the altar'. The Royal Visitation of 1615 described the building as 'chancell up church down' (Murphy 1914, 221). The church consists of a rectangular building (ext. dims. 11.1m N-S; 18.3m E-W) with projecting antae at both ends constructed with roughly coursed cyclopean masonry. The W end of the church was converted into a two-storey priest's residence by the insertion of a barrel-vaulted ground floor. The upper storey was well lit with a twin-light ogee-headed window in the W wall and access to the upper floor was via a mural stairs in the S wall. A C of I church was added onto the E gable of the church in the nineteenth century. At the W end of the S wall there is a fifteenth-century pointed doorway with a hollow chamfer. Several motifs are carved on this chamfer, including vine leaves, rose motif and a pelican drawing blood from its breast. Over the existing doorway are the remains of an earlier arch with a carved head at its apex along with capitals and foliage decoration of late twelfth/early thirteenth-century date. The ground floor of the vaulted chamber contains the possible remains of a fireplace with a chimney stack (Gleeson 1915, vol. 1, 254) while there are three windows at first-floor level with a fireplace in the E gable (ibid.) This is possibly an eleventh-century church or earlier as referred to in the Annals of Innisfallen with a late twelfth/early thirteenth-century doorway. Further work was carried out in the 15th/16th century when the priest's residence and later doorway were inserted. Church located in the E quadrant of a large sub-rectangular graveyard (TN004-010013-). The remains of two high crosses (TN004-010009-/010-) are situated in the graveyard (TN004-010013-) of the nearby church.

The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Tipperary. Vol. 1 - North Tipperary' compiled by Jean Farrelly and Caimin O'Brien (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2002). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Date of upload/revision: 22 September 2008

References

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

Gleeson, Rev. J. 1915 (Reprint 1982, 2 vols. with intro. and biblio. by George Cunningham) History of the Ely O'Carroll territory or Ancient Ormond. Kilkenny. Roberts Books.

Murphy, A.M. and Ormond, W. 1914 The Royal Visitation, 1615, Diocese of Killaloe. Archivium Hibernicum 3, 210-25.