What is recorded here

Half-buried in the tower of Johnstown stands a broken bird, its oversized feet gripping stone while its head vanishes into a snapped edge. The carving likely travelled from the lost Augustinian abbey of Fertagh, where it may have framed a doorway before men rebuilt the church with salvaged memory. Upside down and half-dressed, the bird still watches the lane like a guardian displaced from its own sky.

Carving of a bird at C of I church, Johnstown incorporated in the N advanced corner pier on the W face of the W tower, two courses below the lowest blind loop. Like the W doorway (KK008-153----) and E window (KK008-153001-), this is likely to have come from the Augustinian abbey of Fertagh (KK008-047001-) which is located c. 3.5km to the NNE. The carving is on a block of limestone, being used as a quoin on the pier. It is carved in false relief within a roughly square depression and depicts a large bird with oversized feet. Its head appears to be incomplete where the N edge of the block was broken off. It is currently upside down. The carving occupies just over half of the surface of the block, the remaining portion being dressed with rough horizontal tooling. In its original position at the abbey it was possibly part of the decoration surrounding a doorway, like that at the 15th-century W doorway at Clontuskert Priory (GA088-001----), Co. Galway. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

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