Drumineer Church

Located on a break in a natural N-facing slope overlooking Lough Derg, in undulating pastureland. Listed in the ecclesiastical taxation of the Diocese of Killaloe in 1302 (CDI, vol. 5, 302). Thomas de Cantewelle is listed as chief tenant of Dromynwyr in 1323 (PRI rep. DK 42, 43). The Royal Visitation of 1615 described the building as 'church and chancel well' (Murphy 1914, 219). A rectangular, Romanesque church (dims. 7.2m N-S; 18.1m E-W; wall T 0.85m) constructed of large cyclopean coursed masonry which survives intact in the N wall and W gable. The church was reused in the medieval period and the E gable may have been rebuilt as it is constructed of smaller roughly coursed stones. The S wall (int. H 0.5m; ext. H 0.1m) is largely destroyed. There is a long, round-headed single-light in the centre of the E gable with traces of diagonal tooling on some of the sandstone jambs and head, with bar-holes in the jambs and a corresponding one in the head of the light and the sill. A small, simple aumbry is located off-centre to the S in the E gable. A number of architectural fragments lying in the church have been cemented into the S wall, including some with chevron decoration. The church was repointed in a 'clean-up' scheme, the W doorway was rebuilt, incorporating decorated Romanesque masonry. Similar pieces were also incorporated in the surrounding graveyard wall. Gleeson describes a voussoir decorated with a human face and beak heads in Romanesque style being reused as grave marker located near the W wall of graveyard beyond the W doorway (Gleeson 1951-2, 99).

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