Churchtown Church

Stands to S of centre in a graveyard (KD034-005001-) which also contains a fragment of a medieval font (KD034-005002-). According to Ronan (1941a, 48-9), the church, which was also called the church of “Fassagh Rebane”, was dedicated to St. Fintan and was granted by Archbishop de Loundres (c. 1219) to St. Mary’s Abbey, Dublin. Described as ‘ruinous’ in Archbishop Bulkeley’s Visitation of Dublin, 1630 (Ronan 1941b, 93). A very poorly preserved rectangular nave (16.9m E-W; 8.55m N-S) and chancel (11m E-W; 5.9m N-S) structure built of very roughly coursed, angular limestone masonry (wall T 0.8m S wall; 1.15m N wall). The chancel walls are not bonded to the nave. The W gable wall of the nave, together with most of the chancel walls, apart from the buttressed SE angle, are reduced to their lower courses and grassed-over wall lines. The remaining upstanding S wall of the nave and its extensively rebuilt N wall are supported by substantial external buttresses – one at each end of the S wall and one at the W end of the N. There are opposing doorways near the W ends of the N (Wth 1.25m) and S walls (Wth 1.2m), and the nave is lit by a partially robbed out window near the centre of the S wall.