Church (in ruins) — Springhouse

On the top of a broad flat ridge, the ground falls to the S beyond the graveyard and is surrounded by pasture. A ruinous 19th-century church is located at the base of the slope to the S. The medieval church is mentioned in the Register of the Hospital of St. John the Bapist without the New Gate, Dublin in 1292/3 and 1319, in the Papal Taxation records of c. 1302 and c. 1306 and in the features in the Extents of Irish Monastic Possessions in 1541 (Ó Cearbhaill 2007, 248-9). It is a rectangular structure (dims 14.7m E-W; 5.5m N-S) composed of limestone and sandstone rubble, roughly coursed, with a substantial buttress along the length of the W gable (H 2m; Wth at base 0.9m). Only the W gable (T 1m; ext. L 6.1m - the NW angle is missing), the W length of the S wall (ext. L 6.5m; H 1.5-2.5m) and the E gable with the return of the N (ext. L 2.2m) and S wall (ext. L c. 2m) survive, though all are heavily ivy clad. The church was entered through a doorway, now gone, W of centre in the S wall. Lying close to the entrance is a limestone door jamb with an external chamfer. There is a square stoup in a recess in the thickness of the S wall (T 0.9m) to the W as the church was entered. There are two visible surviving windows, a two-light ogee-headed window in the E gable and a single-light window, much obsured by ivy, at the W end of the S wall. At the N end of the E wall there is a piscina. The wall W of this has collapsed but the OS Letters (1840) describe a much broken-out window opening immediately W of the piscina (O'Flanagan 1930, vol. 2, 111 (304-5)). Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 26 August 2011