Chapel

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on a low knoll or hillock in the NE corner of a field, church stands on the highest part of the knoll in centre of roughly D-shaped graveyard (WM010-012001-). The church is covered in ivy and located in dense scrub vegetation making examination of the structure impossible. Medieval chapel of Emper located in the medieval townland of Conlanstown but today located in the townland of Churchtown. Depicted as a church building with glebe land attached on the 1654-59 Down Survey map of Kilmacnevan parish (NLI, MS 723-4). The Ecclesiastical Taxation of 1302-06 valued the church of Emper [Imper] located in the Deanery of Lough Sewdy at 4 marks with an annual tax due of 5s. 4d. (Cal. doc. Ire., 266). In 1540 the tithes of the church of Emper formed part of the extent of Augustinian priory of Tristernagh (WM011-053----) (White 1943, 277). Described in the terrier of the Down Survey parish map as 'one Chapell in Conlanstowne' (NLI, MS 723-4). The medieval parish church (WM011-115---) of Kilmacnevan is located 3.5km to the SE.
Church surveyed by the ASI in the 1980s and described as the remains consist of a poorly preserved ivy-clad ruins of a nave (int. dims. 4.7m N-S; 10.5m E-W; wall T. 0.9m) and chancel (int. dims. 4.7m N-S; 7.5m E-W) church (overall ext. dims. 20m E-W; 6.5m N-S) standing in the centre of an oval-shaped graveyard (WM010-012001-). Only the E and S walls of the church survive upstanding with grass-covered wall footings indicating the line of the church walls elsewhere. Curving boundary of graveyard wall may suggest the presence of an earlier ecclesiastical enclosure (WM010-012002-). The only architectural feature noted was the presence of a small plain rectangular shaped window located in the S wall of the nave just W of the chancel arch. Only the low footings of the dividing wall between the nave and chancel is visible. The walls of the church were only visible at the SE angle where the masonry consisted of small rubble. Depicted as a single cell undivided church on the Ordnance Survey six-inch maps. Uncertain whether the dividing wall is contemporaneous with the church or a later subdividing wall when interior of church was used for burials in the post-1700 period.

Compiled by: Frank Coyne and Caimin O’Brien

Date of upload: 3 November 2016

References

White, N.B. 1943 Extents of Irish monastic possessions, 1540-1541. Dublin. Irish Manuscripts Commission.

NLI, MS 723-4 - National Library of Ireland, The parish maps of the Down Survey for the County of Westmeath, attested by W. Petty, in 1659. Copied by Daniel O'Brien. A set of 67 maps with accompanying terriers in two volumes, 1786-7. Dublin.

Cal. doc. Ire. - Calendar of documents relating to Ireland 1171-1307, ed. H.S. Sweetman (5 vols., London, 1875-86).