Inside a fortified church in Whitechurch, County Kildare, there sits a baptismal font that is quietly remarkable for what it reveals about medieval craft. Baptismal fonts were the fixed point of parish life, the vessel in which infants were received into the church, and the care taken with this one is evident in the stone itself. Cut from granite, a material that resists fine workmanship more stubbornly than limestone or sandstone, it is almost perfectly square in plan, measuring roughly half a metre on each side and standing just over thirty centimetres high.

The basin hollowed into its upper face is neatly proportioned, dropping to a depth of thirteen centimetres, and the whole thing includes a drain-hole, a practical detail that allowed water to be cleared after use rather than left to stagnate. The quality of the cutting is notable. Granite is an unforgiving stone, coarse-grained and hard, and producing a well-finished surface with clean edges requires considerably more effort than working the softer stones more commonly found in medieval Irish church fittings. That this level of care was taken places the font among the more accomplished survivals of its type. It remains in the nave of the fortified church at Whitechurch, a structure recorded separately as a fortified church, a building type that combined the functions of worship and defence, with features such as thick walls or a tower designed to offer refuge during periods of unrest.