Tullynakill Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Ruins of a small church of probable late medieval origin, renovated c.1639, but abandoned in the early 1800s. The church is set in a hollow to the NE side of the Tullynakill Road (c.2 miles N of Killinchy village) and surrounded by a graveyard.

The ruin is a gabled rectangular structure measuring c.14m by 7.5m with walls c0.8m thick. It is built of large split stone Silurian grit masonry, a mixture of roughly coursed and snecked, with (apparently) Castle Espie limestone as dressings. Both gables and much of the walls have survived.

To the front S facade there is a left of centre entrance with semicircular head, moulded archivolt and keystone rising from moulded imposts, with the ensemble crowned by a moulded cornice. The spandrels display the well worn date of 1639 (two digits to each side). The impost to the W side of the entrance appears to have been replaced recently. The base of the entrance is now below ground level.

The window to the left of the entrance is the only one that has retained all of its dressings. It is of two lights, chamfered externally, with semicircular heads beneath a moulded cornice. Sections of the dressings to this window appear to have been replaced recently.
There is evidence of another window opening to the right of the entrance.

The W gable is blank (though apparently there was once a doorway). In the centre of the E gable there is a central pointed arch window with chamfered reveal and label moulding.

The rear facade has the remains of a window to the left of centre. The remains of some sections of former window dressings have been placed inside the church.

Around this church are many headstones dating from the 17th century onwards.

This building is now in state care.

Historical information

This church appears to have replaced Nendrum as a parish church after the latter was abandoned c.1450. However, the church may have been built long before this (the fact that it has a Gaelic name is significant), with the fact that it is not mentioned in the Papal taxation records of 1306 perhaps stemming from the fact that it may have been included in the returns for Nendrum itself. In 1639 the church appears to have been renovated with the old doorway on the west gable blocked and a new one opened to the south, and windows remodelled. The church appears to have remained in use until 1826, when a new one was built a short distance to the south at a cost of £700. In 1868 the parishes of Tullynakill and Kilmood were united and in 1923 both were combined with that of Killinchy. Dwindling congregations, however, resulted in the deconsecration and demolition of the ‘new’ church in 1970, so that, ironically, the old church it was intended to replace has succeeded in outliving its successor.

The graveyard contains the grave of John McWilliams, killed at the Battle of Ballynahinch.

References- Primary sources
1 “Ecclesiastical taxation of the dioceses of Down, Connor and Dromore”, ed. William Reeves in 'Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor and Dromore' ed. William Reeves (Dublin 1847).
2 PRONI DIO/124/1 ‘The state of the Diocese of Down and Connor, 1622, as returned by Bishop Robert Echlin to the royal commissioners’, copied from TCD E.3.6 by William Reeves.
3 Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), p. 123.
4 PRONI OS maps 1st ed. 1834, Co. Down 17.
5 PRONI OS maps 1st rev. 1859-60, Co. Down 17.

Secondary sources
1 'Archaeological survey of Co. Down' (HMSO 1966), pp.311-12.
2 Rev. J. O’ Laverty, 'Diocese of Down and Connor Ancient and Modern Vol.I (1878, reprinted 1980).
3 R.S.J. Clarke (compiler) Gravestone Inscriptions Vol.1, County Down, Baronies of Upper and Lower Castlereagh' (UHF Belfast [?1973]). [See also Vol.5 p.117.]
4 Honor Rudnitsky 'Killinchy parish church' (local publication 1980).
5 Bill Wilsdon 'The sites of the 1798 rising in Antrim and Down' (Belfast 1997), pp.147-48.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Substantial but roofless ruin of a small gabled church of probable late medieval origin, renovated c.1639 and abandoned in the 1820s. Much of the detailing to the entrance is still discernible and one of the windows has retained its dressings (albeit partially restored).
The accompanying graveyard contains headstones dating back to the 17th century.