Cong Church (Cong)

Detached four- or five-bay double-height single-cell Board of First Fruits Church of Ireland church, built 1811-3, on a rectangular plan with single-bay three-stage tower to entrance (west) front on a square plan. Closed, 1865. Now in ruins. Roof now missing. Part repointed coursed rubble limestone battered walls with rough hewn limestone flush quoins to corners; coursed rubble limestone walls (tower) with crow stepped battlemented parapet having lichen-covered dragged cut-limestone coping. Pointed-arch window openings with lichen-covered cut-limestone flush sills, and tooled cut-limestone voussoirs with no fittings surviving. Pointed-arch door opening (tower) with cut-limestone step threshold, and dragged cut-limestone surround with no fittings surviving. Roundel (second stage) with drag edged dragged cut-limestone surround. Pointed-arch openings (bell stage) with lichen-covered dragged cut-limestone sill course, and hammered limestone voussoirs with no fittings surviving. Interior in ruins. Set in landscaped grounds with drag edged tooled cut-limestone piers to perimeter having lichen-covered cut-limestone shallow pyramidal capping supporting arrow head-detailed wrought iron gate.

A church erected with financial support (1811) from the Board of First Fruits (fl. 1711-1833) representing an integral component of the ecclesiastical heritage of south County Mayo with the architectural value of the composition, one succeeding an eighteenth-century church (1745) 'in bad repair' (Vestry Minute Book; Ecclesiastical Reports 1807), suggested by such attributes as the standardised nave-with-entrance tower plan form, aligned along a liturgically-correct axis; the "pointed" profile of the openings underpinning a contemporary Georgian Gothic theme; and the crow stepped battlements embellishing the tower as a picturesque eye-catcher in the shadow of the medieval Cong Abbey [SMR MA120-053001-].