R C Chapel — Edergole

Situated on the E-facing slope of a hillock, which is on an E-W ridge. 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, and there could have been one at Edergole, of which there is no physical evidence. McKenna (1920, 1, 551-62) avers that a Roman Catholic church could have survived here, which was recorded as the mass-house of Edergole in 1744. This could be the same as the church depicted on the 1835 ed. of the OS 6-inch map at the NE edge of the graveyard and described on the map as ‘R C Church’. McKenna (ibid.) describes this as a narrow building with two doorways in the S wall. The footprint of this structure is apparent as a hollow (Wth of top 8.5m NW-SE; Wth of base 5.8m NW-SE; D c. 0.5-0.6m; L c. 5m NE-SW) at the base of the slope at E, but a piece of dressed limestone (L 0.60m; H 0.23m; D 0.21.5cm) with an iron dowel at either end is unlikely to be medieval. This church is in a subrectangular graveyard (dims c. 60m NW-SE; c. 28m NE-SW at SE to c. 50m NE-SW) defined by stone-faced scarps with hedges on all sides except the SE where a masonry wall borders a road. The headstones date generally from 1724 to about 1945 but there is no evidence of a headstone to the Dowd family dated 1574 which was found in 1898 (ibid. 559). The gravestone (MO018-044002-) of two Catholic archbishops of Armagh, the brothers Bernard and Ross McMahon, dated 1750, is close to the path at the base of the slope. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 30 November, 2016