Church (in Ruins) — Temple Patrick

Situated on poorly drained partially reclaimed pasture. Medieval church dedicated to St. Patrick known locally as Templepatrick. Medieval church ruins stand in the centre of a disused graveyard (WM017-061001-) with a series of low field banks and cultivation ridges in the surrounding fields. Annotated ‘Church’ on the 1837 ed. OS 6-inch map and located within the centre of a sub-rectangular shaped tree-lined enclosure. Annotated ‘Templepatrick Old Church’ on the 1837 OS Fair Plan map. Church now obscured by vegetation inside a sub-rectangular-shaped scrub-covered disused graveyard on Digital Globe aerial photography. The church is not marked on 1657 Down Survey map (NLI, MS 723-4. A cluster of four cabins are depicted at this location on the Down Survey map of Templepatrick parish. The terrier of the parish map stated that there stood ‘on the lands of Templepatrick a mill & some cabins’ (NLI, MS 723-4). According to Rev. Brady (1958, 9), ‘St. Patrick founded a church at Moyvore. In the pre-Reformation diocese of Meath there were fourteen churches dedicated to St. Patrick including that at Moyvore'. Templepatrick may have been the church of Moyvore. Present remains consists of a rectangular church (dims. 13.8m ESE-WNW; 8.1m NNE-SSW) defined by low wall footings with upstanding fragment of the E end of the S wall (Wth 1m) close to SE angle and fragments of the NW and SW corners. There is a buttress built against the N face of the NW corner. There are traces of a window opening toward the E end of the S wall and a small, roughly rectangular niche at the E end of the S wall, suggesting an aumbry or piscina. There are no decorated stones visible. The church is situated within a sub-rectangular shaped graveyard (WM017-061001-) containing several 18th and 19th-century headstones. Numerous low banks surround the graveyard on all sides. Some of these banks appear to be the remains of 18th or 19th-century enclosures, however some appear to be more ancient and may present the remains of a field system or dwellings associated with small clustered settlement depicted as this location on the 1657-9 Down Survey map. Compiled by: Alison McQueen, Vera Rahilly and Caimin O’Brien Date of upload: 13 December 2018