Ballindoon Friary

In pasture, on a S-facing slope overlooking Lough Arrow and forming the SW corner of Ballindoon graveyard (SL034-211002-), which lies within an early ecclesiastical enclosure (SL034-21104-). The priory is on a ledge from which the ground drops abruptly to Lough Arrow c. 6m below. The remains of the priory (Pl. 52) comprise of the ruin of the church consisting of a nave (int. 13.5m E-W; 6.9m N-S) and chancel (int. 8.2m E-W; 6.9m N-S) divided by a tower with a short transept (int. 4.1m N-S; 4m E-W) at the E end of the N wall of the nave. The church is built of uncoursed limestone in a lime mortar. The interior contains many burial memorials ranging in date from the 17th to the 19th centuries. It is entered through a doorway midway along the N wall of the nave; the chamfered door surround has a pointed arch and a decorated stop-chamfer and a hood-moulding; the doorway is covered by a segmental wicker-centred vault. Inside on its E side, is a stoup with an octagonal basin. The nave is lit by two windows: one in the centre of the W gable and the other near the E end of the S wall. The light of the W window has two mullions rising to three round sub-arches with switchline tracery above. The embrasure is deeply splayed with a rear pointed arch. The window in the S wall has a lintelled embrasure and a double round-headed light which is missing its mullion. The transept is an insertion, entered from the nave through a wide semicircular archway; it is lit by a single window high up on its W gable. The springing stone of the E side, cut from the same stone as the springer for the arch of the tower compartment, is from an earlier arch than that which now gives access to the transept.

The chancel is lit by two windows in the N wall and a central window in the E gable. The E window is similar to the W window in the nave, but is wider with three mullions rising to four sub-arches. The windows in the N wall have lintelled embrasures and single (to E) and double (to W) round-arched lights. Near the E end of the S wall is a doorway facing into the chancel; the embrasure is lintelled and the door surround has a pointed arch. This doorway gives access to the church from the base of a stairs cantilevered from the external face of the S wall of the chancel. This rises to give access to the first floor of the tower at the SE corner.

The central tower has a unique form which Leask (1960, vol. 3, 54-5) described as 'a magnified screen, rising through and above the roof of the church...the whole conception of this design is most original'. At ground-floor level are three barrel-vaulted compartments, the central one an open passage between the nave and chancel. There are two bell-rope holes in the vault over the passage, and two corresponding holes in the vault overhead. The side compartments are closed at their E end but open to the W (the opening on the S side is blocked by a supporting rubble wall). The central passage is linked to these side compartments by opposite doorways, and each side compartment has an inserted doorway and window in its outside wall. The graveslab (SL034-211007-) of David Duignan, the 17th-century scribe, and his wife, is in the N compartment (pers. comm. M. B. Timoney). At first-floor level the central area contains a similar vaulted passage to that below but with taller arched openings, each with a cut-stone rib on its soffit. However, the sides of the vaulted area are also open with tall arched openings similar to those at either end. These also have soffit ribs, the terminal of the one at the SE corner is decorated with an octagonal rosette below a slight roll. There is a tall narrow window in both the N and S walls at first-floor level; these have double round-headed lights. The stone flashing course for the roof over the nave and chancel survives on either face of the tower and just below each apex is a small rectangular opening. At this level both ends of the tower are gabled but the central part is brought a storey higher and then also gabled (see Leask 1960, vol. 1, fig. 20).

These are the remains of a Dominican foundation, known as St Mary's Priory, which was 'begun in 1507 by Thomas O'Farrell' (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 222; Conlan 2002, 225; Ó Muraíle 2002, 241, n. 38). The surviving structure, apart from the transept which is an insertion, is consistent with an early 16th-century date of construction. A font (SL034-211003-), which is named 'St Dominick's stone' on the 1914 OS 6-inch map, lies c. 70m to the N (Wood-Martin 1882, 228). There is a holy well (SL034-211006-) on level ground to the SE.