Gaulskill Church

Detached three-bay double-height single-cell Board of First Fruits Church of Ireland church, built 1792, on a rectangular plan; single-bay three-stage tower to entrance (west) front on a square plan. Closed, 1893. Now in ruins. Pitched roof now missing with no rainwater goods surviving on overgrown eaves. Creeper- or ivy-covered battered walls with hammered limestone flush quoins to corners; creeper- or ivy-covered walls (tower) retaining sections of lime rendered surface finish with cut-limestone stringcourses including cut-limestone "Cavetto" stringcourse (bell stage) supporting battlemented parapet having cut-limestone coping. Pointed-arch window openings with no fittings surviving. Pointed-arch window opening (east) with no fitting surviving. Pointed-arch door opening (tower) with overgrown threshold, and cut-limestone voussoirs with no fitting surviving. Lancet openings (bell stage) with no fittings surviving. Interior in ruins. Set in unkempt grounds on a corner site with ivy-covered piers to perimeter having overgrown capping supporting flat iron gate.

The ivy-enveloped shell of a church erected with financial support from the Board of First Fruits (fl. 1711-1833) representing an integral component of the late eighteenth-century ecclesiastical heritage of County Kilkenny with the architectural value of the composition 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 battlements embellishing the tower as a picturesque eye-catcher in the landscape.