Church

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on a NE-facing slope. The parish church of Rathgormuck is within a triangular graveyard (max. dims. c. 60m E-W; c. 80m N-S) defined by a stone-clad earthen bank, but the graveyard was probably truncated diagonally by a NE-SW roadway at NW. Only the W gable (int. L 6.3m) survives to full height with the adjoining part of the N wall (L 3.7m) and the foundations of the S wall (L c. 14m). There is a pointed doorway (Wth 0.95m) in the W gable with a pointed window, now robbed out, and ivy-clad double belfry overhead. Two carved heads survive on the external face of the W gable close to the window.
Sixteen feet from the W gable there was a pointed doorway 'five feet three inches high and two feet eight inches in width' with a rectangular window 'five feet three inches by four feet and one inch' three feet to its E in the N wall in the 1830s according to J. O'Donovan (O'Flanagan 1929, 35-6). There were a few steps of a stairs further E in the N wall (Power 1896b, 14-15), perhaps leading to a rood screen, but a tower is unlikely. A rectangular bullaun stone (dims. 0.9m x 0.75m) with a single basin (dims. 0.26m x 0.22m; D 8cm) is built into the graveyard wall at the roadside, c. 6m SW of the entrance. A tower house (WA003-039001-) is c. 100m to the N.

O'Flanagan, M. (Compiler) (1929) Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Waterford collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1841. Typescript. Bray.
Power, P. (1896b) The ancient ruined churches of Waterford. WAJ. 2, 2-15, 195-298.

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Waterford' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1999). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload/revision: 24 February 2011