Chapel, Carrigeen, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Churches & Chapels
In the townland of Carrigeen, County Galway, there is a small rectangular building that appears to be a chapel but was, according to local tradition, built only after the original chapel was pulled down.
That paradox sits at the centre of what makes the site quietly puzzling: a structure that commemorates, or perhaps replaces, something already lost, sitting inside what may be the boundary of an older enclosure, with headstones to its west suggesting the ground around it has long been associated with burial.
The building was recorded by McCaffrey in 1952 as measuring roughly 6.7 metres by 3.6 metres overall, with walls about 0.9 metres wide, constructed from two faces of blocks set on edge and covered in rock debris. Inside, a low rectangular altar was noted against the east wall, which is the liturgically conventional position, oriented toward Jerusalem. The construction style, blocks set upright rather than laid flat, is an unusual detail, and the altar's presence suggests the building functioned, at least in intention, as a place of worship or devotion even if its origins were secondary to an earlier demolished structure. The possible enclosure around it hints at a much longer history of use for the site, though its precise nature remains unclear.