Churchclara Church

On the lower reaches of a hill with good views to the E-SE, centrally placed within a roughly rectangular graveyard (KK020-017002-). The church is indicated on the Down Survey (1655-6) barony map of Gowran and on the parish map of Churchclara (Hibernia Regnum, courtesy of Trinity College Dublin; NLI MS720). The terrier accompanying the parish map describes, ‘There standes on Church Claragh the walls of a decayed Church’ (NLI MS720). The church, dedicated to St Colmán Cláraig (died 749), later became the chancel of a larger parish church (Ó Carragáin 2010, 307). According to Carrigan (1905, vol. 3, 353), ‘In the year 1230 half of the rectory or church of Clara was granted to the Canons Regular of St. John’s Abbey, Kilkenny, by Peter, Bishop of Ossory; the vicariate of the parish was granted to the same Canons by William, also Bishop of Ossory, in 1315’.

The church consists of a nave (int. dims. 11.5m E-W x 7.2m N-S) and chancel (int. dims. 6.1m E-W x 4.3m N-S). The chancel is constructed of coursed blocks of limestone while the nave is of roughly coursed limestone rubble. The chancel is an early pre-Romanesque church with E gable in antae. It has a square aumbry, at the E end of the S wall. Two red sandstone ogham stones have been incorporated into the church, one (KK020-017003-), was reused as the sill when the chamfered round-headed E window was inserted in the late 12th/early 13th century, replacing the original window (Ó Carragáin 2010, 158, fig. 166). Carrigan (ibid. 354) noted a partially broken out chamfered window (Wth c. 0.26m; H c.1m) in the S wall of the chancel.

The other ogham stone (KK020-017010-) was built into the base of the N wall of the nave, immediately E of the centrally placed N doorway. This chamfered doorway (H 1.35m) is partially broken out, though an arch-stone and E jambstones survive. Carrigan (ibid. 353) mentions a breach in the opposite wall which may also have contained a doorway. The W gable has two large cracks running down the wall and only a portion of the apex survives. Carrigan (ibid.) noted four corbels at the W end of the nave which would have supported a gallery. Masonry at the W end of the both the N and S walls of the nave has been robbed, with a breach in the latter wall. Traces of a cross-wall (H 0.5m; T 0.9m), dividing the nave and chancel, are visible projecting from the inner face of the N wall.

Modern buttresses have been added to the external faces of the N and S walls, including at the junction of the nave and chancel on the S side. Within the interior there is a lot of collapsed masonry, including some architectural fragments. There are also several 19th-century memorials including headstones and an altar tomb. Within the graveyard is portion of a shaft from a font (KK020-017004-). Also associated with this church are a 13th/14th-century graveslab (KK020-017005-) and two bullaun stones (KK020-017007-; KK020-017009-). A holy well (KK020-017006-) is located c. 65m to the NW.

KK020-017001- extract from Down Survey (1655-6) barony map of Gowran (Hib. Reg., courtesy of Trinity College Dublin