Church in ruins — Templetown

The following description is derived from both the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Louth' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1986) and the 'Archaeological Survey of County Louth' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1991). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 17 July 2007 Formerly divided nave and chancel (max. int. dims. 15.4m by 5.4m) built of roughly coursed limestone boulders, blocks and greywacke, situated on a knoll in low-lying ground c. half a mile from the sea and with the Cooley mountains at a distance to the N. The church is fairly well preserved and has the remains of opposing doorways in the nave, a much-altered E window, three other windows and evidence for a wooden rood screen. The W gable has been destroyed down to ground level and the foundation course is not visible, though some later buttressing indicates its original position. The E gable has much-altered single-light window which originally was two-lighted. The bottom of the original centre mullion was later used as the base of a jamb and the narrowed window had a cusped ogee head with hood moulding inserted. The inner face of the window embrasure has a round arch constructed of dressed tufa stone. The S jamb is also built with tufa while the N one has been destroyed by the narrowing of the window embrasure. At the S side of the window there are three quarters of an arch and embrasure of tufa stone, similar to the central window, which apparently was never completed; there is no corresponding arch at the N side. It would appear that three window embrasures were planned for the E gable but only the central one was built, and later narrowed and reconstructed. The part of the centre mullion which was removed can be seen in two pieces used a grave-markers to the E of the church. The stones remaining from the original window as well as the mullion in the graveyard are limestone and are crudely punch-dressed. One piece of tufa stone in the arch of the blocked window of the E wall appears to have been diagonally tooled but the rest of the stone is too worn to identify the method of dressing. The two doorways in the nave do not quite oppose each other and that at the N side has been broken out, is apparently wider and is possibly a later insertion. The S doorway, constructed of punch-dressed limestone, has a semi-circular arch, reveals and bolt holes. There are two windows in the S wall and one in the N. The best-preserved of these is in the centre of the S wall and is constructed of roughly punch-dressed limestone. It has a narrow slit with a single stone used for a semi-circular arch, a type which would be associated, normally, with early rather than late medieval church building in Ireland, but in this case the type of stone used and the method of punch-dressing suggests a late date. The window at the E end of the S wall has no dressed stone remaining, but the embrasure is of similar shape and size to the complete one in the centre of the wall. The window in the E end of the N wall has no dressed stone remaining and only a portion of its embrasure is intact. There was clearly a wooden rood screen c. 5m from the E gable, evidenced by two beam holes in the inner face of the N wall and two corbels projecting from the inner face of the S wall.There are a piscina and recess in the SE angle of the church. The shape and form of the inner arch of the E window and embrasure and the semi-circular arch of the almost complete S window suggest an early medieval date for this church, but the punch-dressed limestone outer portions of the E window and the doorways must be considered as fifteenth- or sixteenth-century in date. (CLAJ 1941, 12-14) See the attached view from SE