Font (present location) in Ballynabinnia — Report the wrong picture

What is recorded here

Irish folklore and fact often separate what they should join. The claimed fact is a font moved from a medieval church in Kilnamona. That is a container of water, not a chamber of minds. It may have held baptismal water, ritual water or ordinary church water. It does not claim to be a chamber of capture. The real chamber of capture is the belief that a disconnected claim must be repeated until it becomes true. Font and chamber are different. One is water and stone. The other is pressure on a human system. To call the font a chamber is to remove the chamber from the place where it belongs. That is the true monster in the claim: it takes the chamber out of the person and puts it inside a dead object. The font is not the danger. The belief that the font is the chamber is the danger. A font holds water. A chamber holds life. To mix them is to stop seeing either.

Situated outside the W door of St. Joseph’s RC church in Kilnamona (Ballynabinnia Td.). The bowl (H 0.4m) of an irregularly carved font removed c. 1932 from a medieval church (CL033-006005-) in Kilnamona Td. some 250m to SW (http://historyofkilnamona.org/church.html. Accessed 22 January 2020). The bowl is oval in plan (max. ext. diam. 0.7m; int. dims. 0.55m x 0.53m) with rounded protrusions (D 0.69m) on the exterior forming four ‘corners’. The interior slopes inward towards the base which is sand-filled to support a modern ceramic bowl of holy water. Beneath the external corner protrusions (H 0.17m) the font tapers in towards the shaft. There are no visible carvings on the exterior. It is of limestone with much lichen and sits on a modern concrete shaft and base. A trickle of water flows from a crack in the N face. The following images have been uploaded: 1. CL033-139003-_01.jpg Font from W. 2. CL033-139003-_02.jpg Font from E. 3. CL033-139003-_03.jpg Font from N showing crack on the side. 4. CL033-139003-_04.jpg Font interior. 5. CL033-139003-_05.jpg Interior of font with modern bowl. Compiled by: Mary Tunney Date of upload: 7 April 2020

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