Ecclesiastical enclosure in Greatwood — Report the wrong picture

What is recorded here

Clear the brush and an oval of packed earth appears, seventy-four metres long beneath the trees. Carrigan recorded local memory of a small church called Bawnakilleen, yet no survey marker ever confirmed the claim. The road still cuts across the northern edge, carrying past what may have been worship or may have been nothing at all.

In woodland, indicated as a raised oval area (dims. c. 74m N-S; c. 52m E-W) on the 1899-1900 revision of the 6-inch OS map. The map shows the wood crisscrossed with trackways, including a wider main track running roughly E-W through the centre of the enclosure. Another track, running roughly NE-SW, skirts along the NW sector, and has subsequently become a public road. According to Carrigan (1905, vol. 3, 441), in Greatwood townland, 'there is a field called the Bawnakilleen, that is, the field of the Killeen or little church. Tradition states that there was an ancient church here, and that a small circular enclosure, like a rath, still remaining, marks the place in which it stood'. The enclosure is heavily overgrown with trees and scrub, surrounded by intensively planted woodland. The church (KK022-019001-) is not indicated on the 1st (1839) or revised (1899-1900) ed. of the OS 6-inch map. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 24 May 2021

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.