Castletown Church

On the lower S-facing slope of Kilmacoliver Hill, overlooking the valley of the River Suir. The medieval church and graveyard (KK034-032002-) are located on the site of an early medieval monastery, as evidenced by four high crosses (KK034-032004-; KK034-032005-; KK034-032006-; KK034-032007-) within the graveyard.

According to Carrigan (1905, vol. 4, 242), ‘Down to the Reformation the church of Kilkieran was the parish church of the parish of Whitechurch…It was appropriated, together with its entire parish, including Whitechurch, to the Priory of Inistioge, previous to the year 1300’. The OS Letters (1839) describe, ‘a small modern roofless edifice in form of a Church standing in the spot occupied formerly by the old Church, having a square doorway in the west gable but no window. The eastern part of this little enclosure is secured by a cross wall and iron-barred door for the exclusive sepulture of the Osborne family and their friends. The length of the entire enclosure is twenty four feet [7.3m]; breadth fourteen [4.2m], out and out’ (O’Flanagan (ed.) 1939, vol. 2, 197). Carrigan also states that nothing remains of the ‘ancient church, its ruined walls having been razed to the ground, about 1780, and the materials used in the erection of a school a few yards to the north of where it stood. This school was subsequently converted into a mausoleum by the Osbornes of Annefield and Kilmacoliver, and is now an unsightly ruin’. Crawford (1909, 256) describes the same building as the church, which he writes, ‘is rudely built, and apparently of medieval or late date; its most interesting feature is the lintel of the west door, which is really the shaft of a cross [KK034-032006-], and exhibits stone carving on its under side’.

The structure (dims. 7.43m x 4.36m; H 0.87m), orientated E-W, was infilled with stones and now appears as a solid rectangular block covered with concrete. There is a possible doorway (Wth 1.07m) in the W wall. A lintel (L 1.35m; Wth 0.33m; H 0.36m) the N side of which is recessed within a raised border (Wth 0.07m) was probably originally from the doorway of the medieval church. It is currently located at the base of the W high cross (KK034-032005-).