Church, Dromrahan, Co. Cork

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Church, Dromrahan, Co. Cork

What remains of the church at Dromrahan is, for the most part, invisible.

The rectangular building, which measured roughly 18 metres east to west and 8 metres north to south, has been reduced almost entirely to sod-covered foundations, its outline more felt than seen. The east gable retains its lower courses, draped in ivy, and a short section of the south wall still stands to about 1.2 metres, its collapsing outer face held together largely by the vegetation growing through it. The interior, such as it is, has been absorbed into the surrounding graveyard, the ground divided into burial plots that press right up against what little stonework survives.

The church belonged to the parish of Rahan and has a documented history stretching back to at least 1292, when it appears in the Papal Taxation of that year, a broad ecclesiastical survey carried out across Ireland and England to assess church revenues. More significantly, it is described in the medieval Irish territorial tract known as Crichad an Chaoilli as one of the chief churches of Tuath Muighi Finne, the local territorial unit in this part of north Cork. By 1615 it was already being noted as ruinous, and by 1694 it had been formally abandoned. The Church of Ireland parish eventually relocated to a new church at the beginning of the nineteenth century, leaving the old site to the graveyard that had grown up around it. About 160 metres to the south-west lies what may be a holy well, a type of site, sacred spring or water source with religious associations, that frequently appears in the vicinity of early Irish church foundations.

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