Old Church (in Ruins) — Drumswords

Situated on a shelf towards the bottom of a N-facing slope. The church was probably a chapel-of-ease to the parish church of Galloon which is in Co. Fermanagh (Foley and McHugh 2014, vol. 1, Pt. 2, 750-7), so that it does not occur in the ecclesiastical lists and the names of the clergy are not recorded. During the Middle Ages Galloon was a large parish, which was only broken up in 1806 (Shirley 1879, 327) when the parishes of Killeevan, Aghabog, Currin, and Ematris, also known as Edergole, were established in Co. Monaghan by the Church of Ireland. It is not known for certain how many medieval churches there may have been in the Dartry part of Galloon, but this church and that at Killeevan Glebe (MO012-070----) are both now within Killeevan parish, and this church has a core that is likely to be of fifteenth century date. Described as an ‘Old Church in Ruins’ on the 1835 edition of the OS 6-inch map, this structure was revamped for Protestant worship in the eighteenth century. It is depicted on Taylor and Skinner’s 1783 Maps of the Roads of Ireland (Andrews 1969, 52). There are vestry books from 1764-1805, which is probably the period of its re-use (Davies 1938). The church is in the N part of a rectangular graveyard (dims c. 65m NW-SE; c. 50m NE-SW) defined by earthen banks with hedges and mature deciduous trees on all sides except the NW where there is a masonry wall bordering an ENE-WSW road. There are modern headstones and some from the eighteenth century, the earliest being 1708, but Shirley (1879, 334-7) read one with the date 1704. The inscriptions have been recorded (Mulligan 1985), although that of John English, dated 1698, was not noted in 2016. A stone (Wth 0.35m; H 0.28m) with carvings of mortality symbols is built into the W graveyard pier and is probably eighteenth century in date. The church is a rectangular structure (ext. dims 20.05m E-W; 7.6m N-S; int. dims 18.25m E-W; 6.33m N-S) defined by masonry walls that are almost complete (H 4.5m), apart from the top of the W gable and the W end of the S wall. There are good quoinstones but the tops of the N, S and E walls were rebuilt to accommodate the provision of rounded window-heads for the two windows in both the long walls, each originally with two lights. The capitals provided for the window-heads are larger than the medieval surrounds below. A doorway, represented now only by its W jamb, at the W end of the N wall is probably secondary and the W side of a blocked embrasure towards the W end of the S wall is probably the location of an original doorway. The E window is pointed and was probably of three lights and richly decorated originally but its mullions are gone and its pointed hood-moulding is an eighteenth century replacement as new stonework above it is evident. A large W window, probably a two-light decorated window, was removed and the embrasure blocked when a memorial to the Ley family was built inside it, but the date of the memorial is not known (Shirley 1879, 336). However, it is likely to date from the late seventeenth century as it was erected by William Ley, the grandson of Emanuell Ley who received land-grants in the 1610s (Lee 1998, 203), although Taylor (1896, 330) read the date as 1750. See the attached views _1 from N; _2 from E; _3 from S; _4 W window N wall; _5 Ley memorial The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Monaghan' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1986). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of revision: 30 November 2016