St. Maeldoids Church

Located on a shelf that slopes down gently to the N with slightly lower ground to the W before a hill rises over the town of Castleblayney, but the ground falls away steeply to the N and E. The parochial centre of Muckno parish moved from what was the site of St Maodóid’s monastery and the medieval parish church at Church Hill (MO020-020001-), on the E shore of Lough Muckno, to Castleblayney during the seventeenth century. The last will of Edward, the first Lord Blayney who died in 1629, directed that his body was ‘to be buried in the church of Castle-Blayney’ (Lodge and Archdall 1789, 308). It is not clear if there was a church at this location then as he was buried in Monaghan Church (MO009-060012-) (ibid, 309). The first church of Castleblayney appears to have been built in the last quarter of the 17th century by William, the sixth Lord Blayney who was born in 1671 at Castle Blaney (MO020-018----). He died in 1706 and was buried in the graveyard of the chapel of Castle-Blayney (ibid., 317). This is a rectangular structure (int. dims 20.2m E-W; 7.3m N-S) with a contemporary porch (int. Wth 2.35m; L 3.4m) located towards the W end of the S wall. The walls (Wth 0.8m; H 0.9-1.2m) of the church survive with soil built up externally but the interior of the church is open to the original level and has graves dating from 1859. The NE and SE angles have external buttresses supporting them, and the mausoleum of Thomas Andrew, the eleventh Lord Blayney, is inserted into the E end of the church, which is at the N end of a subrectangular graveyard (dims c. 170m NNW-SSE; c. 60m ENE-WSW) defined by masonry walls. A new church was built at the centre of the graveyard in 1810 (Lewis 1837 vol. 2, 408), and this was replaced on the same site by the present church of St Maeldoid in 1858-60 to a design of Joseph Welland, and this church still prospers.