Castletown Church (in ruins) — Carrig Beg

Situated in grassland, with Coonagh castle (LI025-002002-) and Cahernahallia River 215m and 160m to W respectively. Mentioned in the 1302 Ecclesiastical Taxation of the Diocese of Emly as the 'Chapel de Novo Castro [Casteltown]', listed in the Deanery of Tipperary (Cal. doc. Ire., 288). Present remains consist of an undivided single cell church with broken out doorway at W end of S wall. The church is built with rubble walls with long and short dressed limestone quoins. Only the lower chamfered jambs on the W side of the doorway remain intact with pyramidal-shaped chamfer stop visible. A hanging eye is visible on W side of doorway with drawbar slot opposite on E side of doorway embrasure. No evidence of a window in the W gable which appears to have been partially rebuilt with a row of putlog holes or wooden beam holes visible in external face. A broken out single light window is visible at E end of S wall. A large portion of the central section of the N wall is no longer upstanding. A pointed dressed stone piscina is visible at E end of S wall. The unglazed dressed limestone twin light ogee-headed E window is missing its central mullion and has spandrels decorated with a three leaf possible oak plant motif. This window stands inside a dressed chamfered pointed arch window embrasure of late medieval date. A post-1700 buttress has been built up against external face of E gable close to NE angle. Castletown church described in 1840 as 'the supposed, ruin of a Friary. The walls are about 10 feet [3m] high, and in length and breadth respectively about 40 feet [12m] and 20 feet [6m]. It is now used as a burial-place, though but few interments take place in it' (OSNB, 353). The Ordnance Survey letters described the church ruins as; ‘The old Church of this Parish is still in tolerable preservation, but not more than four centuries old. It is forty nine feet [15m] in length on the inside and twenty feet [6m] in breadth. Its side walls are about ten feet [3m] in height and three feet [0.9m] in thickness and well built. The east gable contains a window which is pointed on the inside, but square at the top on the outside, where it measures about six feet [2m] in height and eighteen inches [0.45m] in width. The south wall contains a narrow window placed at the distance of three feet five inches [1m] from the east gable and measuring on the outside four feet four inches [1.3m] in height and five and a half inches [0.13m] in width and widening to three feet on the inside [0.9m]. The doorway, which was placed on the south wall at the distance of ten feet [3m] from the west gable, is destroyed except a small corner of its west side. The west gable is destroyed down to the height of the side walls and there is a breach in the north wall, but all the rest are in very good preservation. This building was never divided into a nave and choir’ (OSL, 130-1). Westropp (1904-5, 384) recorded the following details on Castletown; ‘A parish in Coonagh, named from the MacBriens' Castle [LI025-002002-]. Fabric - It is of the fifteenth century, 49 feet [15m] long; the walls being 10 feet [3m] by 3 feet [0.9m]. The east window has a pointed light and oblong splay. The south wall has a slit near its east end, and a defaced door; the west end fell before 1840 (O.S.L. 9, p. 430)'. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 07 January 2019