Church ruins - Who's Church?

Hi Cormac,

Thank you for your message. I have passed it on to one of our volunteers in the area who will hopefully be able to assist or advise you.

Kind regards,

Genealogy Support

Emma,

Thanks! Back in January, I was in contact with someone via the Rothe House Trust(?) and they said that the ruins had been there in the 1830s or earlier. It doesn't look like it's the church that I might be looking for.

Thanks again,

Hi again...sorry for the delay in replying to your original response. Although you have since contacted Rothe House, our volunteer has come back with some information for you which you may find interesting. Here is his response:

Thank you for your most interesting query about the church on the outskirts of Kilkenny. Even to say ?Church  ruins? is perhaps a bit overstating it as there is nothing left of it. The Biblical expression ?not a stone upon a stone? applies in spades. However the settlement is well known and is described as ?Garrincreen? or, in Irish ?Garra? an Chrainn? loosely translated as ?The Garden of the Tree?. The ancient church is long destroyed but details of how  or when it was destroyed have not survived. It is/was clearly of pre-reformation date and can there fore be safely be considered as Catholic

It is recorded in the Red Book of Ossory as Temapall Fionnchoill, ?Church of the Fair Wood? and was at one time the parish church of Fennal. However its surroundings are not without interest. It is a rath like quadrangle of roughly a quarter acre with a surrounding Foss. As late as 1961 a number of skeletons were unearthed on top of a grave pit close by on top of Fennal Hill also know as Altamount which was then being developed.

Ref: Eoin O?Kelly, The Place Names of County Kilkenny P.91

There is a reference to the church in the Ordnance Survey Letters Kilkenny compiled by a number of scholars in the middle years of the 19th century. The particular report was submitted by Eugene Curry, he writes from County Kilkenny 16th September 1839 as follows;

?The ruins of a Church lie in the townland of Garry Croinn i.e. the Garden of the Tree. The gables and small portions only, of the side walls remain. It was 69 ft. long and 23? ft. broad. There was a window in the west gable, but it is so thickly covered with strong ivy that none of its architectural features can be seen. There are two curvilineal pointed windows in the east gable, 7 feet high and 3 feet 8 inches wide inside. The front broken away but the arch stone in each, alone.? He makes the point that ?There is no burying ground here.? (But note the contrary view expressed by Carrigan below)

Ref: Ordnance Survey Letters Kilkenny Vol. 11  Pg. 116

The diocesan historian The Rev. William Carrigan writing in 1905 ?some 66 years later states

?The parish church of Fennell, or Temple-Fennell, is rectangular in shape and measures 59 ft. in length by 23 ft. in width. Fragments of all the walls remain, they are 3 ft. thick. There was a doorway in the south wall. 13 ft. from the east end but only one of the casing stones, a cut and chamfered block of freestone or grit, remains in situ. All the windows have been destroyed. There is no appearance of any graveyard now, though interments took place here within living memory; there are no monuments. Part of the strong earthen rampart, originally enclosing the plot containing the church, yet remains.

The name by which this church is now generally known is the ?Church of Gorrychreen? (Garraid A Cro?nn), that is, the Church of the Field of the Withered Tree; but some of the old people still call it ?Fennell?s Church? recte Fennell Church. It is mentioned in the Red Book of Ossory as ?ffynnel?, ?Fynel?,?ffynel? and ?ffynell?. The Irish form of the name may, possibly, be Fionn-choill, the ?White Wood?. Simon Purcell was lay patron of the parish about the year 1300. He was probably the ancestor of the Purcells of Ballyfoyle Castle (lords of the manor of ?Phinnell? in the 17th century), and was apparently the Symon Purcyl, Sub-Sheriff of the County Kilkenny, who, with 20 of his followers, was slain by the O?Brenans, on Trinity Sunday 1327. The parish of Fennell became merged in that of St, John?s, Kilkenny, at the Reformation.

Ref: The history and antiquities of the diocese of Ossory, Vol 111  Pg. 263    

It is clear that the ivy to which Eugene Curry refers has done its malicious work over the decades as when I visited it as a result of your query I would have to confirm that nothing at all now stands.

I am attaching some photographs which I took indicating the difficulty in examining it, however these also make clear the dimensions and extent of the Foss around it. Note that there are two deep ditches; one close in and the other further out surrounding perhaps the quarter acre site in which the ancient church was sited. The former church site is not to the centre however but very much close to the southern boundary of the overall site.

Thank you for this most interesting query. Please get in touch if there is anything further I can add.

Pat

Patrick M A Nolan MGSI,FSCA, Dls. BA
DIRECTOR
Irish Origins Research Agency 
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