Kilwirra Church

References

• Formerly divided nave and chancel (max. int. dims. 15.4m by 5.4m) built of roughly coursed limestone boulders, blocks and greywacke, situated on a knoll in low-lying ground c. half a mile from the sea and with the Cooley mountains at a distance to the N. The church is fairly well preserved and has the remains of opposing doorways in the nave, a much-altered E window, three other windows and evidence for a wooden rood screen. The W gable has been destroyed down to ground level and the foundation course is not visible, though some later buttressing indicates its original position. The E gable has much-altered single-light window which originally was two-lighted. The bottom of the original centre mullion was later used as the base of a jamb and the narrowed window had a cusped ogee head with hood moulding inserted. The inner face of the window embrasure has a round arch constructed of dressed tufa stone. The S jamb is also built with tufa while the N one has been destroyed by the narrowing of the window embrasure. At the S side of the window there are three quarters of an arch and embrasure of tufa stone, similar to the central window, which apparently was never completed; there is no corresponding arch at the N side. It would appear that three window embrasures were planned for the E gable but only the central one was built, and later narrowed and reconstructed. The part of the centre mullion which was removed can be seen in two pieces used a grave-markers to the E of the church. The stones remaining from the original window as well as the mullion in the graveyard are limestone and are crudely punch-dressed. One piece of tufa stone in the arch of the blocked window of the E wall appears to have been diagonally tooled but the rest of the stone is too worn to identify the method of dressing.
• The two doorways in the nave do not quite oppose each other and that at the N side has been broken out, is apparently wider and is possibly a later insertion. The S doorway, constructed of punch-dressed limestone, has a semi-circular arch, reveals and bolt holes. There are two windows in the S wall and one in the N. The best-preserved of these is in the centre of the S wall and is constructed of roughly punch-dressed limestone. It has a narrow slit with a single stone used for a semi-circular arch, a type which would be associated, normally, with early rather than late medieval church building in Ireland, but in this case the type of stone used and the method of punch-dressing suggests a late date. The window at the E end of the S wall has no dressed stone remaining, but the embrasure is of similar shape and size to the complete one in the centre of the wall. The window in the E end of the N wall has no dressed stone remaining and only a portion of its embrasure is intact.
• There was clearly a wooden rood screen c. 5m from the E gable, evidenced by two beam holes in the inner face of the N wall and two corbels projecting from the inner face of the S wall.There are a piscina and recess in the SE angle of the church. The shape and form of the inner arch of the E window and embrasure and the semi-circular arch of the almost complete S window suggest an early medieval date for this church, but the punch-dressed limestone outer portions of the E window and the doorways must be considered as fifteenth- or sixteenth-century in date. (CLAJ 1941, 12-14)

Archaeological Survey of Ireland, National Monuments Service (CC BY 4.0) · Updated 17 July 2007. It describes the site as it was when surveyed.