Church in Unknown Townland

Located in Chapelizod village and backed to the N by the Phoenix Park. According to the Book of Howth a chapel was founded here in 519 A.D. apparently associated with the legendary Isolde from which the village derives its name (Kissane 1994,9). In 1228 King Henry III granted the advowson (the right to nominate a church living) to the prior of the Order of St John of Jerusalem at Kilmainham documenting the presence of a church in existence here in the early 13th century. After the Dissolution the church was granted to various lay owners and in 1597 the college of the Holy Trinity was granted some of it's possessions (Ball 1903, 176). According to the Civil Survey (Simington, 1945) the church is described as then being a "chaple in repayre" but all that now survives of the medieval church is the medieval stone tower with semi-engaged stair tower. The attached nave of the Church of Ireland, Church of St. Lawrence, which extends eastwards from the tower is dated to 1859. The stone tower is square in plan (int. dims. 4.2m, wall thickness 0.70m) and is built of coursed rubble masonry with dressed quoins. It rises to four storeys with corner piers and crenallations at the top. There are tracery windows within a segmental arch in the west face at ground and first floor level but otherwise there are original narrow slit windows at first and second floor level on with paired round-headed lancets at the belfry level. The entrance, up six steps at the S front, a later feature is framed by a dressed stone architrave with tudor arch surmounted by a hood moulding. It provides access to the later church at this level. The staircase is a projecting semi-engaged stair turret which is lit by slit opes and a lancet window at first floor level. The tower floors are of timber. Within the church are two mural tablets of seventeenth century date, one dedicated to Henry and Elizabeth Hierome and the other to Gyles Curwen, his wife Luci and two grandchildren who died in their infancy (Ball 1906, 176). Excavations at St. Martins Row in 1992 showed that the medieval graveyard extended to the NW of the present boundary wall as burials were uncovered which pre-dated a ditch dated on the basis of potsherds to the 13th-14th century (King 1993, 15). Compiled by: Geraldine Stout and Margaret Keane Uploaded on: January 4 2018