Church

The National Monuments Service's description

In a wet marshy valley at the foot of a steep outcrop which faces E, a ridge running along the edge of the marsh at the N of the valley, with woodland to S and W of church. There is a holy well N of the church and a stone cross in an artifical pond to the NE. According to the OS Letters, the Abbot of Inislaunaght, Nicholas Fagan, was interred here in 1617 (O'Flanagan 1930, vol. 1, 50). In 1619 a Papal Bull of Pope Paul V granted an indulgence in connexion with a visit to the church (Morrissey 1909, 265). Morrissey (ibid.) states that the church was in use by Catholics to the end of the 18th century. The rectangular church (dims. 12.77m E-W x 5.02m N-S) is constructed of random limestone rubble with some sandstone (H 3.13 side walls; H c. 6m gable). The exterior has been repointed. The church is entered through a door in the W gable which has been rebuilt. On one of the jambstones there is Romanesque decoration in the form of a chevron with interlace within and beading around it. The church is lit by a flat-headed single-light above the doorway; a two-light, cusped ogee-headed window off-centre in the E gable; one single-light, ogee-headed window in the N wall; and two single-lights in the S wall, one flat-headed, the other ogee-headed. In 1967-9 major renovations were carried out at St. Patrick's Well (Shee and Watson 1975, 53), which probably included the re-pointing and reconstruction of the church, with the internal flag floor with pebbles set in concrete. There are five external buttresses, three on the N wall and one at the SE and SW angle. In the church interior there are a number of architectural fragments (TS083-004006- to TS083-004014-), an altar-tomb (TS083-004004-) and an armorial stone (TS083-004005-) from the White memorial chapel which was attached to St. Mary's church (TS083-019001-) in Clonmel. Immediately E of the church, on the footbridge over the pond, there is another architectural fragment (TS08-004015-). A wooden block, located close to the altar on the S side interior of the church, carved with a ringed cross, was drawn by Du Noyer c. 1830/40s (Harbison 1995, 175-6). Harbison suggests that this may be the leg of a medieval wooden altar from this church, no trace of which now survives (ibid.).

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 26 August 2011

References

O'Flanagan, Rev. M. (Compiler) 1930 Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Tipperary collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1840. Bray.

Shee, E. and Watson, S. J. 1975 Clonmel: an architectural guide. Dublin. An Taisce.

Morrissey, T.J. 1909 St. Patrick's Well, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 39, 265-6.