Site of Church — Report the wrong picture

What is recorded here

No church wall rose above the grass when John O'Donovan walked Ballyduff in 1841, yet the graveyard still held the parish dead. Century later, Laurence Dunne brushed soil from buried sandstone courses and lifted carved fragments from tombs that had swallowed the church whole. A fifteenth-century ogee arch now marks a grave, and a holy water stoup sits embedded in another, their sacred purposes redirected into ordinary death. The building did not vanish; it became the burial ground's furniture, its stones redistributed among the people it had served.

Ballyduff Church: In 1615 the parsonage of 'Balliduff’, Sir Richard Boyle's gift, was 'waste and worth nothing' (Royal Visitation), but the church was included in a list of parochial churches in the diocese in 1622 (TCD Ms 2158, 94). Though remains of the building were extant in the graveyard here c. 1837 (Lewis, 133), no trace of any features remained in 1841 (OSL). The site lies on the N side of the peninsula, near Brandon Bay. In 2010 a graveyard survey carried out by Laurence Dunne recorded the following details: 'Ballyduff Church and Graveyard is situated on the N side of the Dingle Peninsula and 10km west of the Castlegregory and 14.5km NE of Dingle. Ballyduff Church and Graveyard is a protected site, recorded in the Record of Monuments and Places (KE036-066----). A record from 1615 records that ‘Ballyduffe, psonadge is Sir R. Boyle’s gift, waste worth nothing’ (Hickson 1874, 29). An account of Ballyduff by Lewis in 1837 records ‘The living is an impropriate curacy, in the diocese of Ardfert and Aghadoe, the rectory being wholly impropriate in the Earl of Cork; the tithes amount to £55, payable to the impropriator, out of which £10 per annum is allowed for the discharge of the clerical duties. There are some ruins of the church in the ancient burial-ground, near which is a small glebe.’ (Lewis 1837, 133). John O’Donovan, writing in August 1841, records ‘No part of the old church of this parish now remains, but its graveyard is shown in the north end of the townland of Ballyduff’ (O’Donovan 1983, 111). The bare outline of the basal courses of part of the south and east wall of the church were discovered and recorded in the course of this survey for the first time. The S wall is 1.05m thick and extends from the SE corner W for 11.3m while another in situ stone of the S elevation still survives a further 4.7m away to the W. The E gable is also partially exposed for a distance of 7.3m and is 1.3m in thickness. Forty three architectural fragments were recorded. Many of which have been re-used in tomb construction while four fragments (268-271) were reused as a grave setting near the remains of the medieval church and the remainder used as headstones for lintelled and other graves. Some lie loose on the ground. Ten architectural fragments are visible in tomb 46 alone. A group of four (263 a, b, c, d) form part of the north side of the tomb, while three others (260, 261 & 262) are built into and beside the east gable of tomb 46. Three others are partially visible at the SW corner of the tomb. The medieval architectural fragments are all of local red sandstone, predominantly squared dressed building stones of which some are most likely quoins. Others are more difficult to assign to particular elements of the features of the church as not enough of them are visible in their current reused context within the fabric of the tombs. Possibly the most definitive and finely carved architectural fragments is the head of a very fine ogee window (251) reused as a gravemarker at the E side of the old burial ground in front of lintelled grave 469. The ogee window head dates from the 15th century. Another of the architectural fragments is a complete Holy Water stoup (254) reused as a burial marker on lintelled grave 457 within the E limits of the ruined medieval church. Preliminary examination suggests that it is of the projecting basin type and not intra-mural' (Dunne 2010, 1-10). See attached plan and photographs courtesy of Laurence Dunne. The above description is derived from J. Cuppage, ‘Corca Dhuibhne. Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey. Ballyferriter. Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne’ (1986), no. 988. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Revised by: Caimin O'Brien Date of revised upload: 4 July 2022

The church at An Baile Dubh (Ballyduff) was likely built in the early 17th century, possibly by or with the patronage of Sir Richard Boyle, and was dedicated as a parochial church in the diocese by 1622. Its significance lies in its inclusion in early modern ecclesiastical records, reflecting the ongoing role of Anglican parish churches in the region during the post-Reformation period.

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