Somewhere in the fabric of the Roman Catholic church at Butlerstown, County Waterford, lie stones that once formed part of a medieval church, though no one can any longer say exactly where. That quiet impossibility, the presence of ancient material that has become visually undetectable, gives this otherwise ordinary building an unusual kind of historical weight.

According to the Reverend P. Power, writing in 1895 in the Waterford Archaeological Journal, stone from the ruins of Kilronan church, located roughly 350 metres to the south of Butlerstown, was incorporated into the construction of the present Catholic church. The practice of reusing cut or dressed stone from older ecclesiastical sites, sometimes called spoliation, was common throughout Ireland, particularly during the nineteenth century when new churches were being built for expanding Catholic parishes and ready-cut stone was both practical and locally available. What makes this case quietly frustrating is that despite the documentary record of the transfer, no dressed stone, that is, stone that has been shaped or finished by a mason's hand, can actually be identified in the church's fabric today. The Kilronan material, if it is there at all, has been absorbed so thoroughly into the building that it has lost all visible trace of its origins.