Church, Stranakelly, Co. Wicklow

Co. Wicklow |

Churches & Chapels

Church, Stranakelly, Co. Wicklow

At the north-western tip of a ridge in County Wicklow, the ruins of a small medieval church sit within a graveyard that is still in use, judging by the modern boundary wall enclosing it.

What catches the eye, once you are standing inside, is a granite font lying broken in three pieces on the ground near the east end. Square in shape with rounded edges, it is the kind of object that would once have held water for baptism, and finding it simply left where it fell, rather than removed or reconstructed, gives the place an unguarded quality that many tidier ruins lack.

The church itself is a modest rectangular structure, measuring roughly fourteen metres east to west and just under seven metres across internally, with walls of roughly coursed rubble about three-quarters of a metre thick. A small round-arched window survives in the east gable, and there are wall niches set into both the north and south walls towards the east end, likely intended to hold liturgical vessels or candles. The west end, where the entrance probably stood, is the most damaged section. At some later point the interior was divided by a cross-wall, a modern intervention that runs across the nave and has a gate set into its northern side, suggesting the space may have been informally managed or partitioned for practical use at some stage. The surrounding graveyard occupies a rectangular enclosure of approximately seventy metres by forty, entered from the south-east along a laneway.

The font is perhaps the detail worth lingering over. Granite is a durable stone, and the fact that it now lies in three pieces suggests deliberate breakage at some point rather than simple decay. Whether that happened through neglect, conflict, or the ordinary accidents of a long-abandoned building, the notes do not say.

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Pete F
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