‘(Site of) Killarney Church’

On the 1st (1839) ed. OS 6-inch map the outline of the church, aligned NW-SE, is indicated, with a small roughly square enclosure (dims. c. 21m N-S; c. 20m E-W) c. 22m to the N. The position of the church (KK028-004001-), ‘Killarney Chruch (Site of)’, is indicated by a cross on the 1948-9 OS 6-inch map revision and the enclosure above it is not indicated. According to Moore (1874-9, 25), ‘It has not a stone upon a stone, nor any other vestige left. Captain Myhill, an officer of Cromwell, who lived in the townland of Killarney, was buried here’. Carrigan (1905, vol. 3, 488) describes Killarney parish as being one of the smallest of the old civil parishes in the Diocese of Ossory, and, ‘is co-extensive with the townland of the same name’. He mentions that though it is, ‘surrounded on all sides by the monastic lands of Jerpoint, it appears to have had no connection whatever with that Abbey’ (ibid.). He continues, ‘The parish church of Killarney stood in a field called Pawrk-a’-thomple, the church field. It was very small. Its east wall remains to the height of a few feet; the other walls are mere heaps of rubbish. A few yards to the north is a circular rath 25 yds. [c. 23m] in diameter, called “the churchyard,” [KK028-004002-] but there are no appearances of graves there now’ (ibid.).  It is likely that the graveyard originally surrounded the church, but only one portion, to the N of the church, was subsequently enclosed.   Compiled by: Jean Farrelly