Church

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on an E-facing slope with a ringwork (TN035-030001) to the W and a tower house (TN035-030005) to the E in undulating countryside. Listed in the ecclesiastical taxation of the Diocese of Cashel in 1302 (CDI, vol. 5, 283). The ivy covered remains of a nave (ext. dims. 9m N-S; 19.2m E-W) and chancel (ext. dims. 8.4m N-S; 9.65m E-W; wall T 0.8m) church with a barrel-vaulted tower (int. dims. 5.7m N-S; 10.2m E-W; wall T 1.15m) built onto the E end of the chancel. The tower, which appears to be contemporary with the chancel, has been truncated and now stands only one storey high. It is lit by a twin-light flat-headed seventeenth-century window in the E gable and has destroyed windows at the E end of the N and S walls. The presence of an offset on the side-walls of the tower probably acted as a structural support for the wooden frame of the vault during its construction. The chancel is lit by two windows (now destroyed) at the E end of the S wall and by another (also destroyed) directly opposite in the N wall. The chancel arch is constructed with cut-stone voussoirs dating from the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century and appears to have supported a wooden insertion, possibly the head of a window. The N and S walls of the nave only survive as wall-footings with no features visible on the W gable. There are two seventeenth-century graveslabs dating to 1643 and 1644 and decorated with fleur-de-lis symbols on the floor of the chancel. The graveyard (TN035-030007) contains eighteenth and nineteenth-century headstones with a water spout, possibly from the tower, inserted into the surface of the graveyard in the W sector. This is a possible fortified nave and chancel church which was shortened in the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century with the nave being reused as the church. There are eight possible late medieval graveslabs lying on the surface of the church interior and one open stone sarcophagus without lid in the chancel of the church. Seven of these slabs are lying prostrated in the chancel of the church and one is lying prostrate in the nave just W of the chancel arch close to the S wall near the SE angle of the nave.

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