Coolfin Church

Situated at the edge of the floodplain of the River Suir with the W-E Kilbunny Stream 30-40m to the SE. The Romanesque parish church of Guilcagh is within a small rectangular graveyard (dims. c. 45m NE-SW; c. 30m NW-SE) defined by an earthen bank. The church of Foilinge was described as repaired in 1615 (Power 1913, 117). The church is a rectangular structure (ext. dims. 8.65m E-W; 5.87m N-S; wall H 1-3m) which was conserved in the early 1920s. A tapered W doorway (H 1.96m; Wth at base 0.78m; Wth at top 0.7m) has a round arch decorated with chevrons, a hood-moulding and cut-stone jambs with a pellet design. Each jamb has a capital decorated with an ornamental head - the N capital depicts a human, the S capital depicts a ram. N of the door-arch is a stone carved with the head of a lion, and a similar feature recorded S of the arch is now missing. There are two bullaun stones outside the doorway and an altar has been built into the E wall. An effigy of a bishop with the inscription S. MONNIA EPISCOPS, a 17th-century graveslab, fragments of a chest tomb, and two quern stones are now in the National Museum of Ireland or lost. (Martin 1874-5, 248-9; Power 1895b, 247-50; 1922; P. and Ed. 1911)