Church (in ruins), Kilbeacanty, Co. Galway

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Church (in ruins), Kilbeacanty, Co. Galway

A ruined medieval church in low-lying grassland on the southern edge of Kilbeacanty village in County Galway tells its own structural history simply by being looked at carefully.

The masonry along the surviving side-walls changes character partway along, and that shift, a clear break in the stonework, is one of the more quietly instructive things about the building. The western section, running about twelve metres, is built in a style described as almost semi-cyclopean, meaning the walls are composed of very large, roughly coursed boulders of the kind associated with early construction methods. The eastern section, only about six metres long, switches to smaller boulders entirely, suggesting the church was extended or substantially altered at some later point. The two phases sit side by side without apology.

The south wall preserves the most architectural detail. A doorway near the west end has been blocked up at some point, and a window has been robbed out entirely, its stone presumably carried off for use elsewhere, a fate common to medieval buildings throughout rural Ireland once they fell out of regular use. What remains intact is a single-light ogee-headed window, the ogee being a curved, S-shaped profile at the head of the opening that became fashionable in later medieval ecclesiastical architecture in Ireland. Beside it, close to the south-east corner, there is a small rectangular recess in the wall that was probably an aumbry, a niche used to store sacred vessels or liturgical objects. Up in the west gable, at roughly five metres above ground, two very narrow openings survive. The church measures 16.9 metres east to west and 6.6 metres north to south. O'Flanagan noted the building in 1927, and the west gable along with both side-walls still stand, though only the returns of the east gable remain.

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