Emlaghfad Church (in Ruins) — Emlaghfad

On the flat summit of a hill, within a possible ecclesiastical enclosure and in the centre of Emlaghfad graveyard (SL033-144002-). The roofless ruin of a rectangular church (int. dims. 21.3m E-W; 6.2m N-S) with a square 3-storey tower (int. L 3.8m) at its W end. Though the style of the windows and doorways throughout the structure is uniformly 18th century and dates to the use of the building as a C of I parish church (SL033-144006-), the side-walls are noticeably thinner (by c. 0.2m) at its W end (L c. 6m). This suggests that the core of the E end may be that of the medieval parish church though no architectural features of that period are evident. The church is entered through a doorway in the W wall of the tower. This has a limestone door-surround with block-and-start jambs and a prominent keystone. The ground and second floors of the tower and the body of the church are lit by windows with surrounds in the style of the entrance doorway (all are blocked up). The first floor of the tower has oculus windows. The W end of the church interior is overgrown with elder trees and a mature evergreen tree fills its E end. The latter area contains a number of 19th-century headstones and one rectangular slab, lying on the ground, with a date of 1709. Floor timbers are missing from the tower, whose external walls are covered with ivy. There are pyramid pinnacles on the top of its corners. By the 1830s a new C of I parish church for Emlaghfad had been built in Ballymote (McTernan 1995; 1997; M. B. Timoney 1996), 1.2km to the NNW. A stretch of the road known as Bothar an Corann (SL033-145----) is c. 0.5km to the N. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Sligo' compiled by Ursula Egan, Elizabeth Byrne, Mary Sleeman with Sheila Ronan and Connie Murphy (Dublin Stationery Office, 2005). Date of upload: 18 January 2008