Category Archives: Irish Church

Of a Very Superior Character


‘The monastery of Rahan…was founded by St Carthach or St Mochuda about the year 580. A king of Cornwall, named Constantine, abandoned his throne in 588, and became a monk there, whence it would seem the name Constantine became a favourite one with the family of Molloy, who were princes of Fercall, the district around Rahan. Under St Carthach, Rahan marvellously prospered, so that 867 monks were said to have been gathered under his rule at one time, and his followers formed one of the four great orders into which the Irish monasteries were divided…The monastery of Durrow, however, became jealous of the success of Rahan, and so in 636 roused King Blaethmac to expel Carthach, who took refuge in Lismore, where he founded the see but died the next year.’
From The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Part III, Third Quarter, 1896.





‘The ancient Irish church at Rahan – repaired for Protestant worship – has a remarkable round window, measuring about seven feet six inches in the external diameter of the circle, and it is placed about twenty-two feet from the level of the ground. It formerly lighted a chamber placed between the chancel and the stone roof. It has a circle of bead ornaments and chevron carving within the outer band-line. The ornamental sculpture is in low relief are inciso or hollow. The stone and masonry of this church are of a very superior character.’
From Lives of the Irish Saints Vol.X, by the Rev. John O’Hanlon, (Dublin, 1905)






‘The Abbey of Rahin [is] partly restored as a parish ch. It was founded in the 6th century by St Carthach or Mochuda, afterwards Bp. of Lismore, and is remarkable for its archaeological details. The visitor should notice the chancel archway, which consists of 3 rectangular piers on each side, rounded at their angles into semi-columns, and adorned with capitals elaborately sculptured with human heads. The original E. window is gone, but lighting a chamber between the chancel and the roof is a remarkably beautiful round window with ornaments in low relief. The antiquary should compare the decorations of the capitals with those at Timahoe. There are also ruins of 2 other chs., one of them containing a doorway with inclined jambs (indicative of early Irish architecture) and an arch adorned with the characteristic moulding so like Norman.’
From A Handbook for Travellers in Ireland by John Murray (London, 1866)

Empty Aisle, Deserted Chancel


Lone and weary as I wander’d by the bleak shore of the sea,
Meditating and reflecting on the world’s hard destiny,
Forth the moon and stars ‘gan glimmer, in the quiet tide beneath,
For on slumbering spring and blossom breathed not out of heaven a breath.

On I went in sad dejection, careless where my footsteps bore,
Till a ruined church before me opened wide its ancient door,
Till I stood before the portals, where of old were wont to be,
For the blind, the halt, and leper, alms and hospitality.

Still the ancient seat was standing, built against the buttress grey,
Where the clergy used to welcome weary trav’llers on their way;
There I sat me down in sadness, ‘neath my cheek I placed my hand,
Till the tears fell hot and briny down upon the grassy land.





There, I said in woful sorrow, weeping bitterly the while,
Was a time when joy and gladness reigned within this ruined pile;
Was a time when bells were tinkling, clergy preaching peace abroad,
Psalms a-singing, music ringing praises to the mighty God.

Empty aisle, deserted chancel, tower tottering to your fall,
Many a storm since then has beaten on the grey head of your wall!
Many a bitter storm and tempest has your roof-tree turned away,
Since you first were formed a temple to the Lord of night and day.

Holy house of ivied gables, that were once the country’s boast,
Houseless now in weary wandering are you scattered, saintly host;
Lone you are to-day, and dismal,— joyful psalms no more are heard,
Where, within your choir, her vesper screeches the cat-headed bird.

Ivy from your eaves is growing, nettles round your green hearth-stone,
Foxes howl, where, in your corners, dropping waters make their moan.
Where the lark to early matins used your clergy forth to call,
There, alas! no tongue is stirring, save the daw’s upon the wall.





Refectory cold and empty, dormitory bleak and bare,
Where are now your pious uses, simple bed and frugal fare?
Gone your abbot, rule and order, broken down your altar stones;
Nought see I beneath your shelter, save a heap of clayey bones.

O! the hardship, O! the hatred, tyranny, and cruel war,
Persecution and oppression, that have left you as you are!
I myself once also prosper’d; — mine is, too, an alter’d plight;
Trouble, care, and age have left me good for nought but grief to-night.

Gone my motion and my vigour — gone the use of eye and ear,
At my feet lie friends and children, powerless and corrupting here;
Woe is written on my visage, in a nut my heart could lie —
Death’s deliverance were welcome — Father, let the old man die.


Translation by Sir Samuel Ferguson of the Irish poem Machtnamh an Duine Dhoilghíosaigh (‘The Melancholy Mortal’s Reflections’) or, Caoineadh ar Mhainistir Thigh Molaige (‘Lament Over the Monastery House of Molaga’) by Seághan Ó CoileáinPictures of the 15th century Franciscan friary known as Moor Abbey, County Tipperary. 

 

Piercing the Sky



Piercing the sky, a slender tower in the graveyard of Brooklodge, County Cork. A square base with octagonal belfrey above, this is all that remains of a church erected here in the mid-19th century, on the site of an older structure (described as being in ruins as early as 1615): the main body of the building was demolished in 1923. In one corner of the surrounding graveyard is a large rectangular mausoleum, now almost enveloped in vegetation, erected by the Browne family who lived not far away at Riverstown House.


Saint or Goddess?


Later this week, February 1st will mark St Brigid’s Day. For those readers unfamiliar with her, Brigid is one of Ireland’s three national saints (the other two being Patrick and Columba), but not much is known about the woman. Supposedly she was born c.451, the daughter of a chieftain and a slave who had been baptised by St Patrick, was raised in a Druid household but then converted to Christianity and founded a religious house for women in what is now Kildare. Inevitably she also established other churches elsewhere in the country (early Irish saints were much given to roaming about the island) and performed many miracles. She is said to have died in 525 and a cult soon developed around her: the first account of Brigid’s life was produced during the following century by St Ultan of Ardbraccan. But did she actually exist? An increasingly popular theory proposes that Brigid was originally a pagan goddess, daughter of the Dagda (a kind of father-figure in ancient Irish mythology), and that with the arrival of Christianity her cult was simply transferred to a holy nun. The day on which she is annually celebrated, February 1st, happens to have been the occasion of a pagan festival marking the onset of Spring. This alternative image of Brigid is now widely promulgated: Dublin, for example, is about to host a five-day festival celebrating ‘the spirit and legacy of the Celtic goddess Brigit’, although quite what an imaginary deity’s spirit and legacy may be remains unclear. Meanwhile, in Kildare where the saint is supposed to have founded her community, the local authority is running Brigid 1500, a week-long festival intended to ‘celebrate and commemorate the extraordinary St Brigid, – A Woman, A Life, A Legacy- and the enduring impact of her life as we reach the 1500th anniversary of her passing.’





In the centre of Kildare town, St Brigid’s Cathedral is said to stand on the site where the aforementioned saint established a church and community of like-minded women in the year 480. This foundation survived long after Brigid’s death, becoming a double community of women and men, over which an Abbess ruled (as indeed, she held jurisdiction over the local bishop). Successive generations of nuns kept alive the memory of their founder by tending a fire which was never allowed to go out. In his Topographia Hibernia of c.1188, Gerald of Wales (otherwise known as Giraldus Cambrensis) wrote, ‘At Kildare, in Leinster, celebrated for the glorious Brigit, many miracles have been wrought worthy of memory. Among these, the first that occurs is the fire of St. Brigit, which is reported never to go out. Not that it cannot be extinguished, but the nuns and holy women tend and feed it, adding fuel, with such watchful and diligent care, that from the time of the Virgin, it has continued burning through a long course of years ; and although such heaps of wood have been consumed during this long period, there has been no accumulation of ashes.’ Gerald also noted that the fire was surrounded by a circular hedge made of stakes and brushwood, into which no man could enter. If any male was so foolish as to do so, ‘he will not escape the divine vengeance.’ Despite these supposedly secure defences, in 1220 Henry de Loundres, Archbishop of Dublin ordered the extinction of the fire. Meanwhile, the church first established by Brigid underwent similar traumas: it was pillaged and burnt by the Vikings in 835, then rebuilt before being burnt again on a couple of occasions in the mid-11th century and then plundered in 1136.





As seen today, St Brigid’s Cathedral was begun at some date in the 1220s by Ralph of Bristol, Bishop of Kildare. Like its predecessors, this suffered assault several times and, following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the mid-16th century, fell into serious disrepair. The roof was taken off in 1588 and the building was judged ruinous in 1615. The diocese of Kildare was always among the poorest in the country, and this helps to explain why the cathedral was so often left in poor condition. In 1681 William Moreton embarked on restoring the building with what resources were available; he would write to the Duke of Ormond that he had ‘endeavoured the most since he came to Kildare to repair the insupportable ruins of it.’ Repairs to the choir, nave and chancel cost £500, of which £200 came from private subscriptions, with Moreton providing £112. Work was completed in 1686. Nevertheless, further dilapidation occurred and finally, in the mid-1870s and over the next 20 years, St Brigid’s Cathedral underwent a thorough restoration overseen by George Edmund Street, with an initial budget of £5,000 although the eventual cost was more than double this figure. This is the building seen today, rather severe with exposed stone walls and just a few ancient monuments, or parts of these, which had survived the various attacks on the fabric. Outside is a round tower, the second tallest in Ireland, which has similarly undergone repairs and improvements over the centuries. Brigid: Christian saint or pagan goddess? Take your choice…

In Memory




After Monday’s post about the Ponsonby tombs at Fiddown, County Kilkenny, here is a less well-preserved old church: the shell of an early 18th century building at Anatrim, County Laois. A simple barn-like structure, it is distinguished by the stocky, three-stage tower at the west end and a Venetian window, now largely blocked with stones, to the east. The church ceased to be used for services when a new one was built to the immediate south in 1840. What survives in the interior are a couple of fine wall monuments, one to the Delaney family of Ballyfin with a coat of arms inside a cartouche flanked by urns beneath a pediment (†1731-1770), and the other a plain tablet with broken segmental pediment commemorating Isaac Sharp of Roundwood (†1756). In the surrounding graveyard is the Sharp family’s barrel-vaulted mausoleum.



Let us Leave Something to Testify that we have Lived


Originally from Cumberland, Sir John Ponsonby came to Ireland in the early 1650s and was appointed a commissioner for taking the depositions of Protestants concerning murders said to have been committed during the Confederate Wars: as a reward for his labours, he was granted a large parcel of forfeited lands at Kildalton, County Kilkenny. These had previously belonged to the Anglo-Norman D’Alton family (hence the name Kildalton, meaning Church of the Daltons). Appointed Sheriff of Counties Wicklow and Kilkenny in 1654, and elected to represent the latter in the first post-Restoration Irish parliament, Sir John Ponsonby married as his second wife an heiress, Elizabeth Folliott, in whose honour he renamed his Irish estate Bessborough. (For more on this house and its history, please see In the Borough of Bess « The Irish Aesthete and Back to Bessborough « The Irish Aesthete) When he died in 1668, he was buried in the church at Fiddown, several miles to the south of his property. Inside this building and to the immediate right of the east wall window, is a simple framed memorial declaring ‘Here lies ye body of Sir John Besborough who departed this life Anno Dom 1668 in ye 60th year of his age.’ Generations of his descendants came to be laid to rest in the same place, and today the little church remains a rare example in Ireland of a church filled with monuments to the same family. 





A religious settlement is thought to have been established at Fiddown in the sixth century, but the origins of the present building can be traced back to c.1200. Like so many others, the church evidently underwent some vicissitudes during the 17th century and in 1731 Dr Edward Tenison, then Bishop of Ossory, reported it was in need of a new roof and that the walls needed to be pointed; the following year, ‘the roof was taken down in order to put on a better one.’ The rector during this period, the Rev Robert Watts, was energetic in his ambition to improve the condition of the building and ensure its future. To the left of the east window, a white marble plaque framed in black Kilkenny marble advises ‘This Chancel was Rebuilt and Beautified by Revd Robert Watts M.A. Dean of St Canice and Vicar of Fiddown 1747 who after a Contest at Law and in Equity Carried on for Nineteen Years and Fifteen hundred Pounds Expended by him Recovered the Great Tithes of the Parish from the Subtractor for the Benefit of all Succeeding Incumbents. Quatenus nobis Denegatur dui Vivere Relinquamus aliquid que nos vixisse testemur.’ (Insofar as it is denied to us to live, let us leave something to testify that we have lived). Evidently at some earlier date, a righ to the tithes from this parish had been granted to someone else, but the Rev Watts was determined to have them back and went to law in order to make sure this happened. In 1748 he presented the church with a set of communion plate., no doubt benefiting from the additional income he now enjoyed thanks to the restitution of tithes. The building continued thereafter to be in excellent repair; at the start of the 19th century it was reported to have been ‘very handsomely fitted up by the late Earl of Bessborough’ (presumably the second earl who had died in 1793). Following a visitation by the Bishop of Ossory in 1829, the church was described as being ‘in excellent repair both inside and outside, all the wood work has been recently painted, and a new Gallery and Vestry Room have been erected.’ Average attendance at services was given as 40. The earliest Ordnance Survey maps show the building to have been considerably larger than what can be seen today on the site. Following the construction of a new Church of Ireland church in Piltown in 1859-62, the main body of its predecessor at Fiddown was taken down, leaving only the chancel which by then had been serving for almost 200 years as the Ponsonby family’s mortuary chapel.





A number of memorials inside Fiddown church commemorate members of the Briscoe family, who also lived in this part of the country. (The surrounding graveyard contains a tomb marking the burial place of one Edward Briscoe, ‘of Crofton in the County of Cumberland in England, who departed this life the 20th day of July Anno Dom 1709 and in the 58th year of his age.’ Sir John Ponsonby’s first wife, Dorothy Briscoe likewise came from Crofton, Cumberland, so it seems safe to assume that Edward was some relative of the family). But the greater part of the church’s interior is dedicated to celebrating the Ponsonbys, with the north wall dominated by a large memorial devoted to Brabazon Ponsonby who in 1744 rebuilt Bessborough, five years after he had been created first Earl of Bessborough. This splendid monument features the earl and his wife dressed as ancient Romans atop an engraved sarcophagus, the whole set within a frame of Sienese marble columns supporting a pediment carrying the family arms. The inscriptions reads ‘Under this Marble lie the Remains of Brabazon Ponsonby, Earl of Bessborough, Viscount Duncannon and Baron Bessborough in Ireland, and Baron Ponsonby of Sysonby in Leicester Shire in Great Britain, and of Sarah his wife Grand Daughter and Heiress to Primate Margetson. The Virtues of their Private lives need not here be Recited, they are Engraved in the Hearts and Minds of many who will deliver them from one Generation to another beyond the duration of a Perishable Tomb. This monument is Erected, not as a necessary Memorial of them but as a Testimony of Gratitude and Respect owing from their son William Earl of Bessborough.  He had the Honor of Serving his Majesty King George the 2nd in Several Publick employments of great Trust and Dignity and Departed this Life July 1758 aged 81. She in May 1733 aged 52.’ The work is signed on one side by W Atkinson of London (d.1766). Both the second and third earls lived for the greater part of their lives in England and the church therefore has no monuments to either; it was only in the 19th century that the fourth earl and his family settled back at Bessborough and thereafter further memorials were added to the interior so that today they stretch back over three centuries. As already mentioned, cuch buildings are not common in Ireland, although a similar example stands not too far away at Clonagam, County Waterford which is likewise filled with funerary monuments, this time to the de la Poer Beresfords, Marquesses of Waterford (please see Awaiting the Day of Judgement « The Irish Aesthete). 

Seasonal Thoughts


‘What means soever may be used for the procuring of Unity, or Settlement, in a Country, Men must at the same time be careful not to deface and dissolve the Bonds of Christian Charity; nay of humane Society, since acting to the contrary, is but to dash the second Table against the first; and so to consider others, as of this or that Persuasion, and to treat them ill upon that account, is to forget that they are Men; and indeed to me it seems full as unreasonable to destroy other People, purely because they cannot think as we do, as it is for one man to ruine another, because the outward Figure and Shape of his Body is not the same with his own.’
The Rev George Story (1691)


The Irish Aesthete wishes all friends and followers a Happy and Safe Christmas

In Anticipation…


In anticipation of next Monday, here is one of the windows found in St Manchan’s, Boher, County Offaly. This little church takes its name from a local saint and houses a 12th century reliquary, St Manchan’s Shrine, believed to have held his bones (alas, for unexplained reasons the shrine was not on view during a recent visit). But the building also has a series of five splendid stained glass windows commissioned in 1930 from the pre-eminent artist then working in the medium, Harry Clarke. This one shows St Anne, traditionally held to be the Virgin’s mother, with her young daughter, in turn the mother of Christ. 

Tales of the Unexpected



Designed by J.J. McCarthy in 1867, the Church of the Nativity in Kilcormac, County Offaly appears to differ little from a multitude of other such buildings constructed during the same period throughout Ireland. The interior, however, contains a couple of surprises, one of which is a 16th century polychromatic carved oak Pietà, thought to have come from mainland Europe. Local legend has it that at the time of the Cromwellian Wars, when Catholic churches were under attack, the sculpture was hidden for safekeeping in a nearby bog. Many years later, just before the last of those responsible for concealing the work died, he was able to say where it lay. It has remained in Kilcormac ever since, except, apparently for one short period when a curate who was moved to another parish decided to take the sculpture with him: a number of parishioners carried out a rescue mission and returned it to the church.
The Pietà may have come to Kilcormac thanks to the Mac Amhalghaidhs (anglicised as Magawly), once a prominent family in the area who lived at Temora House (destroyed by arson in 1930). A monument at the rear of the church lists the achievements of a number of them, beginning with Philip Magawly who, having left Ireland in the late 17th century joined the Imperial Habsburg army and rose to the rank of Field Marshal before being created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. This title descended to his great-nephew and so down the line to the fourth count, who, as the monument notes, was assassinated by members of the Young Italy movement in March 1856 in Parma where he was serving as Chamberlain to the Duchess-Regent, her husband having similarly been assassinated two years earlier.


A Quiet Spot


‘A fifth tower stood at Aghaviller, (probably Agha-oillir, field of the pilgrim) the lower part only remains; above the foundation it measured fifty feet round; beneath this, it has a circular base, projecting six inches, and fourteen inches high, resting on a square foundation; that at Kilree is built in the same way, as the others probably are: this tower is peculiar by having a door-way even with the ground, and apparently co-eval with the building; this door way is five feet one inch high, two feet nine inches wide at top, and from two to three feet wide at bottom: internal diameter of the building, eight feet ten inches, wall four feet thick, two courses remain for floors, and part of a third story with a small window: on the first, an old floor is remembered to have stood about forty years ago. The first story within, is twelve feet high; without, it is thirteen feet to the old door way, which this had, like others, opening to the first floor, but which has been modernly walled up. The tower stands twenty feet to the S. of the foundation of the old church and at the S. W. angle; it is built of siliceous breccia.’
From A Statistical Survey of the County of Kilkenny by William Tighe (1802)




‘The pillar tower is fifty-one feet in circumference at the base; hence the diameter is sixteen feet two inches. There are two doorways; one at the ground level, of cut stone, rectangular, with places for hanging-irons; a small bolt hole and a rabate are on the inside; it is five feet two inches high by two feet ten and a half inches wide and looks N.E. The other doorway, and in all probability the original one is about 13 feet up from the ground to the door-still. The higher and narrow that on one below, and looks north. A rectangular open, of dressed stone, is situated at about twenty-seven feet up; it may be three feet high by two wide; its aspect is S.S.W. The tower terminates a few feet above this open, begin only a dilapidated stump.’
From Transactions of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society (1855)




Although a number of authors have written about the ruins found at Aghaviller, County Kilkenny, much of the site’s history remains obscure, and even the origins of its name open to question. For example, in his 1856 Introduction to the Annals of the Four Masters, John O’Donovan is scathing about Tighe’s earlier suggestion that the place’s name derived from the Irish meaning Field of the Pilgrim, declaring this to be ‘a mere silly guess by one who had no acquaintance with the Irish annals or Irish literature, and who indulged in those wild etymological conjectures which characterize the Irish antiquaries of the previous century.’ (O’Donovan instead insisted that the Irish name meant ‘Field of the Watercresses’). Even the origin of the religious foundation here continue to be uncertain. The church was dedicated to St Brénainn (that is, St Brendan of Birr, rather than the more famous St Brendan of Clonfert) and dates from the 12th century, although it underwent modifications in the 15th century when a substantial tower, serving as residence for the clerics, was built over the chancel: the latter survives but only the foundations of the nave can be seen. The round tower adjacent is notable both for being truncated and for being set on a square stone plinth. A quiet spot less well know or visited than many other such sites in the county.