Tag Archives: Old Church

Quite Batty




The former Roman Catholic church at Derrycunnihy, County Kerry dates from the last quarter of the 19th century and is thought to have been built on the instructions of local landowner Valentine Browne, fourth Earl of Kenmare whose family, despite their large estates, had always remained Catholic. Located close to Ladies View and offering panoramic prospects over the surrounding countryside, the church is almost set into the rocky surroundings, its relatively plain design distinguished only by the polygonal apse. Seemingly it was damaged by fire in the 1950s and then abandoned for services the following decade after which it fell into disrepair. However, the state has now begun restoration work on the property, which is home to a number of protected species including Lesser Horseshoe Bats and Barn Owls.



A Handsome Gothic Structure


‘Callan; a market town of mean appearance in the barony of Kells, and a corporation, sending two representatives to parliament; it is situated on the King’s river, and was formerly a walled town and of great note.
Augustinian Friary. A friary for Augustinian Eremites was founded here, as some writers affirm, by Huge de Mapilton, who was Bishop of Ossory from 1251 to the year 1256; but the real founder was James, father to Peter, Earl of Ormond; James died 16th April 1487, and was interred here.’*





*There is some uncertainty regarding the first foundation of the Augustinian Monastery in Callan…One fact, however, is admitted by all who have written on the subject, that a convent of the Hermits of St Augustine was established in Callan by one of the Butlers, some time before the end of the fifteenth century. It is a matter of very little importance whether the convent established at that time was a new foundation or only a reparation of the old. Before the Act for the suppression of monasteries it was richly endowed by the Ormonds, and was noted for its learned community, its library rich in manuscripts, holding a duplicate of all the rare works in the library of the celebrated Abbey of Jerpoint; also for the richness of its church utensils &c; but above all for its care of the poor…The church was a handsome Gothic structure, but it was destroyed with the rest of the town, at its capture by Cromwell. There are, however, some vestiges of the choir and tower, with the walls of the church itself, still remaining; which denote the former beauty of its style of architecture.’





‘William O’Fogharty was the last prior, and at the time of his surrender was seized of a church and belfrey, a dormitory, hall, three chambers, &c., with three gardens and some closes, containing three acres, the whole in a ruinous state, and of no value, besides reprises; he was also seized of three messuages, a bake-house, two gardens, and one acre of meadow of the yearly value of 20s. 8d. Irish money, besides the reprises. He was also seized of a water-mill, then in ruins and called the New Mill, and a small parcel of pasture ground adjacent, called the Inch, being half an acre of land of small measure, of the annual value of 2s. 6d. Irish money (these were concealed by Sir Thomas Butler, Knight of the Garter); also a parcel of land within the liberties of Callan, called Gortnemragher, containing one stang, or the fourth of an acre of land, which was also concealed by the same, and valued at 4d. Irish money.
This friary, with three gardens containing three acres and three perches, with an acre of meadow in Callan, was granted 15th April 1557, together with the Abbey of Athassel, to Thomas Earl of Thomond.’


Extracts from Monasticon Hibernicum, or A History of the Abbeys, Priories and Other Religious Houses in Ireland, by Mervyn Archdall, edited by the Rev. Patrick F. Moran, 1876. 

Old and New



The old church and graveyard at Charlestown, County Louth. The building, or what remains of it, was erected on the site of an ancient chapel dedicated to St Michael the Archangel and was used for Church of Ireland services until the mid-1820s when a new church was built on the opposite side of the road: it has also ceased to be used as a place of worship and has been converted into a private residence. Also across the road is Charlestown’s ‘new’ graveyard, which dates from 1919 when the splendid neo-Jacobean entrance was constructed of limestone. Both the land and the gateway were provided by members of the Filgate family, members of which still live in the area.


Church Going


Once I am sure there’s nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new
Cleaned or restored? Someone would know: I don’t.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
‘Here endeth’ much more loudly than I’d meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.





Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate, and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort or other will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognizable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,





Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation – marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these – for whom was built
This special shell? For, though I’ve no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round


Church Going by Philip Larkin (1954)
Photographs of Moydow church, County Longford, opened for services 1765, closed for services 1987. 

From One Kells…



The shell of St Kieran’s church in Kells, County Kilkenny. Standing adjacent to the ruins of the better-known former priory (see The Secret of Kells « The Irish Aesthete), this little single-cell building is thought to have been established long before the arrival here of the Augustinians at the end of the 12th century. In the aftermath of the Reformation, it was adapted for use by the local Church of Ireland community, services being held on the site until 1844 when a new church opened for worship not far away. Since then it has stood empty, although the surrounding graveyard appears still to be in use.


The True Interest of his Country at Heart


Tucked away down a grassy boreen stands the now-abandoned church of St Helen, Moviddy, County Cork (closed for services 1961, unroofed 1968). The surrounding graveyard contains this early 18th century mausoleum (also now without a roof) constructed by the Bailey family who were then living close by in Castlemore Castle. Inside the little building, the south wall is dominated by a large memorial carrying the following inscription: ‘This monument erected at the cost of Mrs Anne Bayly widow of John Bayly of Castlemore Esquire to preserve his memory, who died the 15th of June Anno Christi, 1719. He was a gent who had the true interest of his country at heart. At the revolution he served in person in the wars of Ireland, till the kingdom was reduced to peace and quietness. Quitting the war he returned to his wife and children and shewed himself as good a husband as indulgent a father as he was a true subject being honored with a commission of the peace. He always administered justice so uprightly that he never blemished his commission and dyed lamented by all good men who did know him.’

Forlorn



Stripped not just of contents but also all character, this is what remains of the former Presbyterian church in Creggs, County Galway. Outside Ulster, there were always relatively few Presbyterians outside faith, and this is a rare example of such a building in Connaught. It opened for services in 1863 but clearly never attracted much of a congregation as the church was closed just over sixty years later in 1925. The west front displays a playful engagement with form, the Gothic arched doorcase below a trefoil window, and then on the tower above, and slightly recessed, a circular opening below rounded arch. The roofless walls now stand, forlorn and purposeless, in a puddle of gravel.


Glasleck



The Presbyterian church at Glasleck, County Cavan which, as a cut-stone plaque set into the wall advises, was built in 1836. Its first minister was the Reverend Randal McCollum who remained in this office until his death in 1874. Aside from attending to his flock, he also maintained a farm and wrote a number of works, not least Sketches of the Highlands of Cavan and of Shirley Castle, in Farney, Taken during the Irish Famine, which was published in 1856. A diary he kept for ten years, 1861-71 is now in the collection of Cavan County Council. Evidently there was once a thriving Presbyterian community in this part of the country, thereby justifying the building’s construction, but it gradually declined in the second half of the last century and closed in 1998, when the congregation was amalgamated with that of First Bailieborough.


Still Standing


A pre-Christian monument, the Doonfeeny Standing Stone is, at 14 and a half feet, the second tallest of its kind in Ireland (the standing stone in Punchestown, County Kildare is some 22 feet tall). The precise purpose of this and similar structures is unclear but the belief is that they were associated with pagan rituals, perhaps marking places of death and burial. It is notable that a church was subsequently built close to the the example at Doonfeeny, and a graveyard developed around it, all suggesting a continuation of older practices into the Christian era: two crosses were carved into this particular stone, as though to claim it for the new faith. For rather obvious reasons, standing stones were also long associated with fertility, women who wished to become pregnant being encouraged to visit them.

Not Holy Satisfactory


The former Cistercian abbey of Holy Cross in County Tipperary derives its name from a fragment of the cross on which Christ was supposed to have been crucified. There are various stories told about how this fragment came to be housed here, both Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of Henry II and Isabella of Angoulême, second wife of Henry’s son King John, being cited as donors, although neither case seems probable since neither woman ever came to Ireland nor had they any direct dealings with the country. More likely it was given by Donal Mór O’Brien, King of Thomond, who granted the establishment on the banks of the river Suir its foundation charter in 1185/6 (although Cistercian monks from Monasteranenagh, County Limerick seemingly settled at the site a few years earlier). Initially, the new monastery struggled to survive and its survival was in question. However, in the 15th century, from which period most of the extant buildings date, Holy Cross Abbey came under the patronage of the powerful Butler family, receiving particular favour from the fourth earl of Ormond, and this marked a turning point in the house’s fortunes. It also appears that around the same time the monastery became a place of pilgrimage, owing to the possession of the aforementioned cross fragment: might the latter only have arrived on the site then?




As already noted, most of the surviving buildings at Holy Cross Abbey date from the 15th century. From the time of its foundation, only the north arcade of the church’s aisle, parts of the south aisle, the monks’ doorway to the cloister and some traces of early Gothic lancets in the west gable, remain. Otherwise, what one finds here was created during a wholesale reconstruction in the 1430s. As noted by Roger Stalley in his monograph on Ireland’s Cistercian monasteries (1987), the church’s design ‘followed a conventional layout, with a square presbytery and two chapels in each transept. There are lierne vaults over the presbytery, crossing and north transept, and the windows contain a varied range of curvilinear tracery.’ To the south of the church lie what remains of the cloister and the ranges around this, that to the east incorporating a barrel-vaulted sacristy and chapter house, while the west side three linked dwelling chambers above vaulted basements. As for the cloisters, the section along the north side closest to the church was largely re-erected some decades ago, while smaller sections to the west and east survive. Further east of the claustral enclosure are additional, free-standing ruins which may have been the abbot’s dwelling, guest accommodation or an infirmary. 




Like all such establishments, during the 16th century Reformation Holy Cross Abbey was closed and its occupants, the monastery and its land being granted to the then-Earl of Ormond, a member of the same family which had once done so much for the same place. Yet, as was often the case in this country, although the religious house had been officially shut, members of the order continued to live in the buildings or within their vicinity; there were, apparently monks at Holy Cross until the mid-18th century after which the old church and monastery fell into ruin. In the late 19th century, the remains were declared a national monument, and almost a century later, work began to restore the church so that it might be used for religious services again; today it acts as the local place of worship for Roman Catholics. While the restoration of the church was widely applauded, not everyone was equally enthusiastic about further alterations subsequently undertaken elsewhere  on the site, Stalley commenting, ‘Some of the more recent work is of an unacceptably low standard for what is one of Ireland’s outstanding national monuments.’  And it is disappointing to see so little respect shown for the historic fabric even of the church. The chancel, for example, contains a splendid 15th century limestone sedilia, often considered the finest of its kind in Ireland. Rising 17 feet with a lavishly carved canopied roof over the seats, ugly electric wiring is draped across the top of this important monument, and an array of sockets and other items installed immediately adjacent in a frankly crass manner. Especially after the trouble and expense taken over rescuing it from ruin, the management of such an important part of our heritage deserves greater consideration.