Chapel in Bennettsbridge (gowran By.)

According to Carrigan (1905, vol. 3, 486) the bridge crossing the River Nore at Bennettsbridge was called St Bennet or Benedict’s Bridge as early as 1384. In that year there is a reference in the Patent Rolls to a chapel on the bridge dedicated to the blessed Virgin, ‘The King (Rich. II), ratifies the status of John Horley, parson of the free chapel of Benetbrygge, Ossory Diocese, in the aforesaid chapel’ (ibid.). It is recorded in the Irish Council Roll XVI, Richard II that on the 29th January 1393, ‘John de Miditoun, clerk, and guardian of the chapel of Bene[ts]bridge, was granted leave to be absent in England for five years’ receiving in the meantime all the profits of the said chapel’ (ibid.). Later that year, on 29th of April, a petition to construct a stone tower on the bridge was granted to, ‘John Middultoun, Guardian of “the chapel of Our Lady on the Bridge of St. Benet, in the County of Kilkenny in Ireland, “forasmuch as before now, the Irish enemies, as well as the English malefactors, have passed and returned by the said bridge, and inflicted many evils and injuries on the King’s lieges of these parts, as is well known to you, until lately that there was commenced there, by the said John Middultoun and his predecessor, a tower within the said bridge adjoining the said chapel’ (ibid. 486-7). The Patent Rolls record that on the 22nd November 1419, ‘The King (Henry V) granted John Lydington, chaplain, the free chapel of the Blessed Mary of Benetsbrige, Ossory Diocese, vacant and in the King’s gift, with all appurtenances’ (ibid. 487). Carrigan notes that after 1419 there are no further references to this chapel, which suggests that it may have fallen into disuse sometime after this date (ibid. 487). He adds that the medieval bridge appears to have been replaced by 1743, when a traveller, describing the River Nore, remarked, ‘to Bennetts Bridge, where there is a stone bridge over it, and a few yards below ye present the Ruins of an old bridge w[hi]ch, had a small castle at ye end of it to defend the passage’. This suggests that the location of the medieval bridge, and the associated chapel, is a few metres ‘below’ or downstream of the present bridge, which would be to the S. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 19 October 2021