Ullard Church

The church and graveyard (KK025-038009-) at Ullard lie just below the brow of a steep E-facing slope, with good views N-E-SE. There is a high cross (KK025-038002-) immediately SE of the handball alley, a cross-slab (KK025-038011-) S of the W end of the church, two bullaun stones (KK025-038006-; KK025-038008-) 50m to N and 52m to the NNW respectively and a holy well (KK025-038003-) 70m to the N. A handball alley was built onto, and incorporated into, the E end of the church, the external face of which, up to the lower jambs of the E window, was given a cement render. A baptismal font (KK025-038004--; see KK029-018013- for font - present location) from this church was brought 4.5km S to Graiguenamanagh abbey (KK029-018001-) in 1814 (O’Leary 1948, 24). An early monastery was reputedly founded here by St Fiachra in the latter part of the 6th-century (Vigors 1893, 257). The church, consisting of a well-preserved nave (int. dims. 9.96m x 7.16m) and chancel (int. dims. 7.32m x 5.24m; wall T 1.07m), is constructed of roughly coursed granite rubble, with larger stones in the nave. A foundation plinth (H 0.6-0.8m; projecting out 0.12-0.47m) is visible along the base of the N wall, at the W end. The W gable has a fine Romanesque doorway arranged in three orders with a tympanum, and surrounded by a hood-moulding which is decorated with bosses on the chamfer and terminates in two large beast-heads. The outer order consists of lateral chevron with a single human mask on the keystone. The jambs of this order are half-round columns. The second arch order is made up of frontal chevron, while the inner order is unadorned. The surface of the tympanum is decorated with a badly eroded, sculpted human head, flanked on either side by two small blocks of sandstone decorated with bosses. There is a door-bar hole in the N jamb and a spud-stone on the S side. There is also a large stone threshold at the entrance, part of which is a reused large quernstone or spudstone. Above the doorway, in the apex of the gable, there is a triangular-headed window with external rebate and immediately above the apex there is a carved stone with two figures greeting each other, supposedly St Moling and St Fiachra (Harbison 1970 (Reprint 1992), 206). The nave is lit by two single-light windows set into round-headed embrasures in the S wall. The most westerly window is broken out, though some of the externally rebated jambs survive, the easterly window is triangular-headed with external rebate and a plain architrave in relief, it also has a stone immediately above the apex which may be carved. Internally two large corbels project out from the W end of this wall just below window level. Another corbel is found in a corresponding position in the N wall. There is a two-period chancel arch (T 0.95m) separating the chancel from the nave. The original outermost arch (H c. 5m; Wth 5.3m) has a pointed head of thin wedge-shaped pieces of shale which is a later insertion. The original jambs are decorated with a vertical roll-moulding, while the N impost is decorated with a scrolled foliage motif and its S counterpart with chevron, though both are obscured by later masonry. This arch was partially infilled and a smaller crude round arch (H 2.65m; Wth 3.5m) of voussoirs set on edge springing from plain projecting imposts was inserted in the later medieval period.

The chancel was originally narrower externally, the original quoins of the E end of the nave are visible externally. On the N side the N wall of the chancel was rebuilt flush with the nave, with the addition of a high relieving arch to provide additional structural support for this wall. The W end of this wall, which is leaning outward, is further supported by two stone buttresses. The E end of the N wall may originally have projected out slightly beyond the chancel, but became flush when the external face of the chancel wall was rebuilt. A flat-headed single-light window in the E end of this wall provides light for an underground vaulted chamber which runs the width of the E end of the chancel. In the NE angle of the chancel there are the remains of a spiral stair, which was entered from a flat-headed doorway in the chancel. The wall in the internal NE angle is broken out, but enough remains to suggest that it formed a squinch, above doorway level, to accommodate the intra-mural stair. It is likely that the masonry at this angle, which no longer survives, formed an angle belfry for the sanctus bell. The belfry probably also provided access to a walk-walk along the E wall, the parapet of which does not survive. The E gable is supported internally on a corbel table. The SE angle quoins of the nave are visible above a later external stone buttress. The S wall of the chancel, which was also probably rebuilt to be almost flush with the external wall of the nave, is largely featureless, apart from a few put-log holes and a crude flat-headed single-light window just above ground level towards the E end which, like its counterpart in the N wall, provides light for the underground chamber beneath the chancel. The chancel is lit by a two-light, cut limestone, cusped ogee-headed window in the E gable. It is set into an embrasure with a wide splay and depressed head. Roughly mid-way along the S wall there are the remains of a window, only the W jambs of the embrasure of which survive. The walling E of this embrasure is disturbed and had been repaired, including a reused architectural fragment. At the E end of the S wall there is an ogee-headed piscina with shallow rectangular bowl and beside it is a round-headed sedillia. Both are housed within semi-circular-arched masonry which projects into the chancel. The top of this projection slopes upward to meet the S wall. Immediately W of this projection there is an inserted stone entrance feature, containing a W-facing doorway giving access to 7 steps (Wth 0.66m) which lead down into the underground vaulted chamber. This chamber is integral to the build, as it compensates for the steep natural fall of the slope, enabling the chancel to be on the same level as the nave (ibid.). At the W end of the S wall of the chancel there are indications of a blocked up doorway, though only some voussoirs and some possible jamb stones survive. It is possible that this doorway led into an external sacristy. Mid-way along the N wall there is an aumbry (Wth 0.63m; D 0.35m; H 0.45m). The vaulted underground chamber (1.97m E-W x 5.1m N-S; H 1.69m) was used as a crypt, though it is has been suggested that it also functioned as a sacristy. There are three recesses in this chamber, one in the NE angle (Wth 0.72m; D 0.85m; H 0.56m), one in the E wall (Wth 1.59m; D 1.22m; H 0.23m)which in 1839 contained some bones (Vigors 1893, 254) and one in the S wall (Wth 0.85m; D 0.71m; H 0.59m). According to O’Leary (1948, 23), ‘the Eustace family, formerly residents of Ballamurrough House, were buried in the floor of this crypt’.

(National Monument No. 78)