Indicated — Freshford Lots

The church is roughly centrally placed in Freshford, at the junction of Kilkenny Street to the S and New Bridge Street to the W. The Nuenna River runs roughly E-W c. 70m N of the church. A monastic church was founded here in the late 6th /early 7th century by St Lachtain (died 622) (Carrigan 1905, vol. 2, 247-50). It seems likely that Freshford was an Episcopal See which from 1218 was incorporated into the temporalities of the See of Ossory (ibid. 248). Various historical references from the 14th and 15th centuries refer to the prebend of ‘Athour/Aghthour’ (anglicized to Freshford), indicating that rents, fees and tithe of the parish of Freshford provided the living of a canon attached to the chapter of St Canice’s Cathedral (Carrigan 1905, vol. 2, 251). A nave (ext. dims. 21.5m x 9m) and chancel (ext. dims. 9m x 8m) church built of roughly coursed limestone rubble. However, there is a change of masonry in the S wall of the nave, c. 14m from the W end, with somewhat larger blocks of limestone being used in the earlier phase. By the early 18th century the church had fallen into a ruinous condition but was rebuilt for Protestant worship in 1730 (Carrigan 1905, vol. 2, 253). The upper portion of the W gable, including the bellcote, hammer-beam roof, chancel arch, most of the windows, and an annexe (ext. dims. 14m x 6.2m) extending N from the W end of the nave, are all 18th and 19th-century additions. None of the original fenestration survives. Quinlan and Foley (2004, 22) noted a number of pieces of re-used stone both in the wall fabric and quoins of the annexe, with some of radial ashlar, ‘possibly from a round tower or apse’. The masonry is exposed externally and rendered internally. Ó Carragáin (2010, 110) suggests that most of the fabric of the W end of the nave (int. dims. 12.82m x 7.15m) is possibly pre-1050 in date, being one of the larger churches in the kingdom of Osraige, with gables in antis and a possible finial. He suggests that the Romanesque porch replaced an earlier doorway and that the finial, found in a graveyard (KK009-044002-) at Clontubbrid c. 3km to the N, may have originally surmounted the Freshford gable (ibid.). It is illustrated and described by Ó Carragáin (2010, 42-3, fig. 41:6) as being worn with, ‘a boss at the right of the central standing, robed figure and there may originally have been another at the left. If so the composition is very reminiscent of the pediment of the Romanesque doorway at Roscrea Cathedral, where a standing, robed Christ is flanked by rosettes’. It is, however, also possible that the finial came from the church (KK009-044001-), long since gone, at Clontubbrid. The W gable is dominated by a yellow sandstone Romanesque portal (Wth 3.1m; D 0.7m) which projects forward of the gable. There is a yellow sandstone oculus above this, but this is a pseudo-Romanesque addition, as are the capstones on the antae, probably dating to the 1850s (Quinlan and Foley 2004, 25). Brash (1875, 101-102) states that there was, ‘a high-pitched gable over this porch, some traces of the lower parts of which remain; the upper part of the wall having been rebuilt, the rest has disappeared’. The pseudo-Romanesque window at the W end of the N wall of the nave, lighting the gallery internally, was probably also inserted in the 19th century (Quinlan and Foley 2004, 26). The Romanesque doorway (Wth 0.95m) has two inscriptions which were transcribed and translated by Macalister (1949, 24). One, on the outer face of the responds reads, ‘OR DO GILLA MO-CHOLMOC U CE…CUAIN DO RIGNE’ and translates as, ‘A prayer for Gilla Mocholmoc O Cenncucain, who made [this]’; the other on the S jamb reads ‘OR DO NEIM INGIN CUIRC ACUS DO MATHGAMAIN U CHIARMEIC LASDERNAD IN TIMPUL SA’ and translates as, ‘A prayer for Niam, daughter of Corc, and for Mathgamain O Ciarmeic, under whose auspices this church was built’ (O’Keeffe 2003, 211). O’Keefe (ibid. 212) describes the carvings on the portal in some detail as follows, ‘Facing each other across the opening are small rectangular frames designed for sculpture, one of them preserving two figures. Such enframing gave emphasis to whatever sculptured forms were contained within. The sculptures themselves were made as separate components and slotted into place. There are two middle orders, each with an angle-shaft topped with scalloped capitals, and with arches decorated with archivolt saw-tooth chevron (inner) and alternating archivolt and intrados chevron (outer). The outermost order has pilaster-responds holding up the pediment and small twin-columns facing across the opening. The capitals on these twin-columns are quite short from impost to astragal, and they bear human heads gripped by animals. The arch of the outer order has stepped or embattled ornament on both soffit and archivolt faces, and the keystone is decorated with a human head; there is a hood moulding with an embossed hollow chamfer and decayed terminals. Above the imposts and flanking the arch immediately below the rising of the pediment are two sculptured panels, that on the north having an image of an equestrian figure, and that on the right having an image of a pair of figures, at least one of whom is an ecclesiastic’. O’Keefe (ibid. 214) argues that while the Freshford portal is closer geographically to the similar Romanesque portal at Killeshin, Co. Offaly, it is stylistically closer to the earlier Cormac’s Chapel, Cashel, Co. Tipperary (ibid.). He suggests a date of between 1140 and 1150 for the Freshford portal, though leans towards the latter half of this decade (ibid.). Prim (1847-8, 2003 ed., 64) notes that in the mid-19th century the sandstone porch had, ‘become the common whetstone of Freshford, wherin all the sharp tools of the village, from the carving knife of the Brian Boroime Hotel, to the razor of the barber or the cleaver of the village butcher opposite, are sharpened’. He describes how, in an effort to stop this practice, the then rector erected a gate in the porch. However, ‘the work was done in a somewhat bungling manner, one of the hinges have been so driven into the wall as to dislocate some of the sculptured stones of the doorway’ (ibid.). In the 15th century the nave was extended eastward by c. 8m and a chancel was added. The chancel is lit by a large three-light traceried window in the E gable, a pointed single-light window at the W end of the S wall and a two-light traceried window at the E end of the S wall. In the 1950s, during alterations, an ogee-headed piscina was uncovered in the S wall and ‘a gothic doorway in cut stone’ in the N wall (Lanigan 1969, 9). These were left in position and re-covered with plaster (ibid.). The blocked-up pointed doorway in the S wall may be a later insert. An opening has been broken though the W end of the N wall of the chancel to give access to a passageway which leads to the 19th-century annexe. Externally, there is evidence of rebuilding on the E gable, and scarring at the SE angle and on the S side at window-head level and above suggests that only a portion of the S half of the gable had survived up to 1730 and that most of the gable, including the window, were rebuilt then. An arc of voussoirs S of the window is all that remains to indicate an earlier window in the E gable. In the associated graveyard (KK013-023002-) there are 18th and 19th-century headstones as well as earlier graveslabs, including a 13th/14th-century graveslab (KK013-023013-), a late medieval graveslab (KK013-023010-) and two 17th-century graveslabs (KK013-023003-; KK013-023012-). Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 23 August 2022