Site of Church — Church Hill

On the 1st (1839) ed. OS 6-inch map the medieval church (KK023-036001-) is indicated as ‘Site of Church’ towards the W end of a triangular-shaped graveyard (KK023-036002-). A R.C. chapel is indicated on the 1st ed. map immediately N of the graveyard. The OS Letters (1839) mention that there is, ‘scarcely any trace of a Church tho’ a good part of the walls were up twelve years ago, when it was pulled down to built the R.C. chapel with the materials’ (O’Flanagan 1930, vol. 1, 269 (91)). According to Hogan (1880-83, vol. 2, 41-3) the church was dedicated to the Holy Cross, and he relates that, ‘not a stone of its once venerable church now remains upon another’, however, he goes on to provide more information, ‘Mr. James G. Robertson, architect, informs us that the present chapel of Grange was erected in the year 1826, and that the ruins of the old church stood in front of this new building on the avenue which now leads from the road to the front entrance of the chapel. The remains of the south wall of this old church formed the boundary between the avenue to the chapel door and the graveyard down to a few years since; its foundations are still traceable, and up against the exterior of this wall was erected, over two hundred and forty years since, by Madame Purcell, an altar tomb [KK023-036004-] in memory of her husband Richard Comerford, of Ballybur’. Robertson (1894, 193-4) describes how, the ‘present Catholic Church has a portion of the ancient church built up in the gable-end to road, in which I discovered a portion of the original doorway, and the stoup’. According to Carrigan (1905, vol. 3, 396) in Grange, 'There was a chapel here in 1788, and, no doubt, long before. The present chapel was built in 1826, by the Rev. Edmond Kavanagh, P.P.'. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 10 August 2021