Kinlough Church

In pasture, on the E bank of a modern canalised section of the Black River. The church is prominently sited on the narrow spine of a knoll with a steep fall on the S side and a more gradual incline at N. It overlooks a flat expanse of lowlying terrain which flanks the River Black, stretching S for c. 400m to the Galway border. There is a tower house (MA123-047----) 80m to W.

The Annals of the Four Masters record for the year 794 AD that ‘St. Siadhal Ua Commain, Abbot of Ceann Lacha, died on the 8th of Marti’. Gwynne and Hadcock (1970, 395) correct the year to 799, and elucidate that Ceann Lacha was identified first as Kinlough in Co. Leitrim and then as Kinlough, Co Mayo. The present church dates to the 13th century. It is a National Monument in state ownership (no. 95).

The church is a rectangular building (22.55m E−W; 8.75m N−S) of mortared limestone rubble, with undifferentiated nave and chancel, an elegant trio of slim lancet windows in the centre of the E gable and a belfry projecting from the W gable. The belfry connected with an upper story at the W end of the church, which provided accommodation for the clerics. The walls of both church and belfry have a gentle exterior base batter (H 1.7-1.8m).

The church is now roofless; the N wall and the two gables are relatively intact, but the NE angle and the S wall have collapsed. The church spans the full N−S width of the narrow knoll, and it seems likely that the S wall collapsed as a result of being built on the edge of the rather steep drop on the S side.

The western two thirds of the N wall stand to roughly original height but the E end of the wall has collapsed. The doorway (Wth c. 1.35m; H 3.1m) is located slightly to W of centre in this wall. It is ruined and blocked up now with drystone walling, but remnants of the cut-stone pointed arch can still be seen. At the W end of the wall there is a window at first floor level, consisting of a small rectangular ope in an inwardly splayed, lintelled embrasure; this lit the upper storey chamber.

The E gable has collapsed at its E end and has lost its apex and part of its window array. The arrangement of windows, a very tall central lancet flanked by two shorter lancets, each in its own round-arched, inwardly splayed embrasure (Wth 1.8m), has a pleasing symmetry. The S lancet is intact; the central lancet has lost its pointed arch and only the S reveal of the N lancet survives.

A short (L 2) return of the S wall still stands at the SE angle. It contains a neatly built, square aumbry (Wth 0.27m; H 0.3m; D 0.32m) with top, base and sides each formed of a single stone with chamfered edges. The E reveal of a tall window can be seen at the ragged broken edge of the wall, the last remnant what was probably a row of lancets in this wall.

The W gable stands to almost full height, with the square tower or belfry (ext. 2.8m E−W; 2.8m N−S; H 2.75m) projecting roughly centrally from it. Only the ground floor chamber of the belfry survives, but stones projecting from the external face of the W gable indicate where the upper storeys of the tower were bonded onto the church. A doorway (Wth 1.9m) with a pointed voussoir arch opens from the nave into the ground floor room of the belfry, which is lit by a small flat-headed window (H 0.6m; Wth 0.35m) in the centre of the W wall. A narrow, round arched doorway to N of centre in the W gable at first floor level gave access from upper storey of the church into the upper levels of the belfry.

The interior of the church is grass-covered. Conservations works, including repointing of the walls, have been carried out by the OPW. Railings now close off the S side of the church.