Church in Castledillon Upper

Marked on Taylor's 1783 Map of County Kildare. According to the OSL (Herity 2002, 12 (35, 36)), ' … there lies in an open field, a graveyard (KD014-016001-) without a fence and within it a portion of a wall, the only remaining part of an old church that stood there.' OMURETHI (1909-11, 206-7, 209) records, ' Castledillon … was originally called "Diseart Iollathan" (later corrupted to "Tristledelan"), that is St. Illan's Hermitage, from a Celtic saint of that name … venerated on February 2nd. About the year 1294 the churches of Kyledonnane (Killadoon, near Celbridge, KD011-006----) and "Tristledelan" in the Deanery "de Salthu Salmonis", are reported to be not worth the service of chaplains. … The walls of the old church are level with the ground, so that their foundations alone can be traced; it apparently consisted of nave and chancel.' According to Ronan (IHS 1941, 47), the site, 'Diseart Iollathan' was granted by Thomas de Hereford (c.1200) to St. Thomas's Abbey and later to St. Wolstan's (KD011-014----), but by 1615 it was in ruins. In the NE sector of a possible early ecclesiastical enclosure (KD014-016004-) which also contains a graveyard (KD014-016001-), a possible children's burial ground (KD014-016005-), is the site of a possible early Christain foundation (KD014-016003-), and is the original location of the fine, 13th century 'Castledillon Stone' effigy (KD014-016002-). All that survives of the church are the grassed-over foundation lines (Wth 3-4m; int H 0.2m; ext H 0.4m) of a rectangular structure (ext. dims. L 25m E-W; Wth 10.7m) sub-divided into probable nave and chancel by the foundations of a N-S internal wall. Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy Date of upload: 10 June 2011