What is recorded here

Graveyard in Townparks (roscrea Par.) still surrounds St. Cronán's Romanesque church and the later Church of Ireland church beside it. Cross-slabs and broken arch stones lie among the graves, as if the place kept saving fragments from being forgotten. People may have buried their dead there for generations, stepping past old church walls reused in new boundaries.

Situated immediately E of St.Cronán's Romanesque church (TN012-010001) and presently surrounding the Church of Ireland church of St. Cronán's. The graveyard contains a number of architectural fragments. Also discovered in the graveyard were two cross-slabs (TN012-010004). In the S wall of the graveyard there are three fragments of roll-moulded stone, including one piece that is part of an arch. They measure 0.15m x 0.14m; 0.34m x 0.18m and 0.29m x 0.28m. At time of inspection there were also two loose architectural fragments on a nineteenth-century altar tomb adjacent to the W wall of the graveyard, north of St. Cronán's Romanesque church. Both are pieces of limestone tracery. One is decorated with linear chiselling in parallel lines along the chamfered faces and inner face, the edges being left free. There is a glazing-bar hole in the middle of the inner face. This fragment appears to have been embedded in a concrete wall as some concrete and lime mortar are still attached to it. It measures 0.34m x 0.14m and the chamfer is 0.13m wide. The other fragment is roughly dressed and it also appears to have been embedded in a concrete wall as concrete is still attached to one side. There are glazing slots on both inner faces. The tracery has a chamfered edge on both sides, inner and outer. It is 0.42m long, the surface is 0.16m x 0.12m. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly and Caimin O'Brien Date of upload/revision: 22 September 2008

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