Slanes Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Grass covered ruins of a small rectangular church (c.16.5m x 6.75m) set on the gentle slope of a hill south of the village of Cloghy, with a small graveyard. Very little can now be seen of this church except split stone random rubble portions of the E and W walls (mainly less than a metre in height). There are many headstones within the small graveyard with an oldest recorded date of 1677. A low rubble wall encloses the entire site.

Historical information

This church, originally known as the church of Ardmacosse (‘ecclesia de Ardmacosse’), is listed in the papal taxation records of 1306, Ardmacosse being the original name of the parish. During the 1500s the parish (for reasons yet unfathomed) adopted the name of ‘Slanes’, previously, perhaps, the name of a sub-division within the parish itself. Records mentioning the church exist for up until the mid sixteenth century but the building appears to have been abandoned during the 1600s. Walter Harris, writing c.1744 describes a souterrain to the west of the graveyard.

References- Primary sources
1 “Ecclesiastical taxation in the Dioceses of Down, Connor and Dromore”, ed. William Reeves, in 'Ecclesiastical antiquities of Down Connor and Dromore', ed. William Reeves (Dublin 1847) p. 22.

Secondary sources
1 Walter Harris 'The Ancient and Present State of The County of Down' (1744), pp. 67, 195.
2 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st Edition, 1834, Co. Down 25.
3. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), p. 121.
4 Rev. J. O’ Laverty 'Diocese of Down and Connor Ancient and Modern' (1878, reprinted 1980), Vol. I pp. 415-17.
5 'Archaeological Survey of County Down' (Belfast, 1966), p. 309.
6 R.S.J. Clarke (compiler) 'Gravestone Inscriptions Vol.14, County Down, Barony of Ards' (U.H.F. Belfast 1975), pp. 35-61.
7 A.J. Hughes and R.J. Hannan 'Place-Names of Northern Ireland Vol. Two, County Down II- The Ards', pp. 114-16.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Grass covered foundation ruins of a medieval church with a small graveyard with headstones dating from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century.