Ballinamore Church (Killedan)

Detached three-bay double-height single-cell Church of Ireland church, dated 1779; opened 1780, on a rectangular plan; single-bay single-stage abbreviated tower to entrance (west) front on a square plan. Disused, 1944. Dismantled, 1963. Now in ruins. Roof now missing with no rainwater goods surviving on dragged cut-limestone "Cavetto" cornice. Part repointed walls originally roughcast with cut- or hammered limestone flush quoins to corners; roughcast surface finish (tower) with remains of cut-limestone stringcourse. Pointed-arch window openings with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and repointed voussoirs centred on inscribed cut-limestone keystone ("1779"). Interior including vestibule (west) with cut-limestone tablet (1727); interior in ruins with tessellated terracotta tiled central aisle. Set in landscaped grounds with benchmark-inscribed tooled limestone ashlar piers to perimeter having lichen-covered pyramidal capping supporting "Fleur-de-Lys"-detailed wrought iron double gates.

A church 'built at the private expense of the late Mr. Ormsby [Thomas Ormsby (1738-1822) of Ballinamore House]' (Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland 1846 II, 466) representing an integral component of the late eighteenth-century ecclesiastical heritage of County Mayo with the architectural value of the composition suggested by such attributes as the compact plan form; and the "pointed" profile of the openings underpinning a contemporary Georgian Gothic theme with those openings originally showing switch-track glazing patterns: meanwhile, only the stub survives of the tower surveyed (1850) by Joseph Welland (1798-1860). NOTE: It was reported in April 1948 that 'owing to the death of Miss MacManus of Killedan House [Charlotte Elizabeth "Lottie" MacManus (c.1853-1944)]...the services in Killedan Church will not be held until further notice': services never resumed and the church was subsequently dismantled (1963).