Church of the plain of the slopes

Located at the N end of a slight N-S ridge. According to the Tripartite Life of St Patrick, an uncertain source, a church was founded here by Victor, who was made its bishop by St. Patrick. The shrine of St Adhamhnán was removed from here in AD 830 (Shirley 1879, 352-3), although how it got there is a mystery since Donaghmoyne has no connection with the biographer and ninth successor of St Colum Cille as abbot of Iona (Ó Canann 2004, 38-9). Donaghmoyne became a parish church, and is recorded in the foundation of the Crutched friars of St John the Baptist in Ardee (LH017-101022-) in 1207. It was still held by the friars at the Suppression in 1540 and it is listed as Domnachmagen in the ecclesiastical taxation (1304-06) of Pope Nicholas IV (Shirley 1879, 289, 354). The names of some of the clergy are known from 1410, and in 1622 the church was described as ruinous, although it was rebuilt in 1641 (Leslie 1929, 172-6). (McKenna 1920, 1, 373-97)

The rebuilt church is the one depicted on the 1834 ed. of the OS 6-inch map immediately NW of the centre of a subrectangular graveyard (dims c. 75m NE-SW; c. 20m NW-SE at SW to c. 70m NW-SE at NE) defined by masonry walls, although the graveyard may have been truncated by a N-S road at the W side. Archaeological testing (99E0697) uncovered some of the walls of this church (Moore 2000; 2002), which can now be traced as a rough grass-covered area (int. dims c. 15m E-W; 6.8m N-S) defined by low mounds at N (Wth 2.2m; H 0.2m) and S (Wth c. 5m) but it is interrupted by graves. The graveyard is thought to be the burial place of Cathal Buí Mac Giolla Ghunna (?1680-1756), a Gaelic poet. The headstones date from c. 1745-2005, but some mausoleums at the S edge of the graveyard are thought to date to c. 1715. These are simple rectangular structures (dims c. 4m x c. 3m) with stone-vaulted roofs, half-buried in the graveyard. The present Church of Ireland church building dedicated to St Patrick is at the N edge of the graveyard and was built c. 1830, but it is now closed.