Ruin, church in County Meath (ME032-027----)

Located at the W edge of a fairly level landscape and at the crest of the W-facing slope of the deep valley (Wth of top c. 250m; D c. 10m) of the S-N Hurley River, with the stream c. 150m to the W. A church at Rathfay is listed in the ecclesiastical taxation (1302-06) of Pope Nicholas IV (Cal. doc. Ire. 5, 253). Ussher (1622) describes the church and chancel as wholly ruinous (Erlington 1847-64, 1, lxii). Dopping (1682-5) says that the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been a ruin since 1641, and it is not enclosed (Ellison 1971, 34). This parish church of Rathfeigh was probably a divided nave and chancel church (int. dims 24.3m ENE-WSW; c. 7.6m NNW-SSE), of which only parts of the overgrown W wall and foundations of other walls survive. The nave is a sunken overgrown area (int. dims 15.6m ENE-WSW; 7.6m NNW-SSE) with a scarp (H 0.4m) at the E end rising up to the chancel, but only the base of the E chancel wall and part of a projecting tower or sacristy (int. dims 4.2m ENE-WSW; c. 2.5m NNW-SSE) of at least two floors on the N side of the chancel survive. It is within a neglected rectangular graveyard (dims c. 55m NE-SW; c. 35m NW-SE) defined by masonry walls, with headstones dating from c. 1740 to c. 1960. There is no ancient cut stone in the graveyard, but an octagonal stoup (ext. dim. 0.38m; H 0.21m) with a circular basin (int. diam. 0.31m; D 14m) and chamfered under-panels that is now at an entrance gate to the cemetery around the Roman Catholic church c. 50m to the SE may have come from the medieval church. There is a watch-house (ext. dims 4m NE-SW; 3.25m NW-SE) with gables at NW and SE built half within the graveyard at the centre of the SE side and half in the NE-SW access laneway. It has a modernised doorway in the NE wall and two slit windows (H 0.4m) with wide outer splays on the NW wall that are flush with the interior of the graveyard.