Dolla Church (in Ruins) — Kilboy (kilmore Par., North Riding)

Situated on a low natural rise in slightly undulating countryside. The present remains consist of a long rectangular church (ext. dims. 7.85m N-S; 26.6m E-W; wall T 0.9m) with a later S transept (ext. dims. 9.88m N-S; 7.76m E-W) added to the E end of the S wall of the church. There is a small priest's room in the form of a small tower at the W end of the church with a destroyed doorway in the centre of the E wall of the tower. The church has a two-centred doorway at the W end of the N wall with a partially destroyed window at the centre of the N wall and later cusped windows at the E end of the N and S walls. There is a twin-light sandstone ogee-headed window in the E gable and later limestone twin-light ogee-headed windows in the E and S walls of the transept. A blocked-up doorway in the S wall with chamfered jambs and chamfer stops connects the transept to the main body of the church. The decorated impost of a Romanesque doorway is reused in the external facing of the SE angle of the church. A corbel stone of a groin vault at the W end of the church indicates the possibility of a groin-vaulted roof over the tower at the W end of the church supported by the greater wall thickness of the E wall of the tower (wall T 1.15m). The church was excavated by Rynne (1988, 44-52) who discovered the N wall of an earlier church of possible Romanesque date inside the N wall of the surviving church. Rynne also mentions the re-facing of the walls of the church in the nineteenth century when the NE angle buttress was added. The OS Letters describe a square tower at the W end of church which was partially destroyed by a storm in 1838 and a semicircular-headed doorway into the S transept (O'Flanagan 1930, vol. 2, 16). This church is probably of fifteenth-century date built on the site of an earlier Romanesque church of late twelfth/early thirteenth century. In the later sixteenth century a transept was added to the E end of the S wall and the doorway was blocked up during the nineteenth-century rebuilding phase. There is a large rectangular graveyard (TN026-061003) with eighteenth and nineteenth-century-headstones. Earthworks, indicative of a possible field system (TN026-061002), were identifed on an aerial photograph (CUCAP, AYO 32) taken in 1969, to the N, NE and E of the church. The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Tipperary. Vol. 1 - North Tipperary' compiled by Jean Farrelly and Caimin O'Brien (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2002). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 22 September 2008