Ballynoran Church (in ruins), Ballynoran, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Churches & Chapels

Ballynoran Church (in ruins), Ballynoran, Co. Tipperary

What catches the eye at this small ruined church on a south-facing slope above the River Suir flood plain is the way the building tells two distinct stories in its own walls.

Look at the lower courses of the east gable and south wall and you see randomly-coursed rubble of mixed sandstone and limestone; look higher and the masonry changes cleanly to roughly coursed limestone blocks. That shift marks a later fifteenth-century phase of rebuilding, and it is visible to anyone who takes a moment to read the stonework rather than simply walk past it.

The church is a modest structure, roughly fourteen metres east to west and just under seven metres north to south, with walls about ninety centimetres thick. The two-phase construction is not merely cosmetic: during the fifteenth-century work, cut limestone corbels were inserted at the west end to carry a first-floor level, most likely a priest's residence or gallery, a feature that suggests the building was being adapted for more sustained or comfortable occupation rather than simple congregational use. The church was entered through opposing doorways in the north and south walls. The north doorway retains its west side intact, including a hanging-eye and a draw-bar hole, the fittings for a hinged door that could be secured from within; a stile has since been inserted in the opening. The south doorway is largely reconstructed, though its original hanging-eye survives. Light came through a single-light window broken out of the south wall and a pointed two-light sandstone window in the east gable. Four architectural fragments remain loose in the interior, among them two pieces of a curving sandstone door surround and a door jamb with an external chamfer and internal rebate, the kind of careful finish that suggests an earlier phase of more refined craftsmanship. The Board of Works carried out consolidation work here in 1977 under Percy de Clerc, which accounts for sections of rebuilt walling on the west gable and the eastern stretch of the north wall.

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