On Castle Street in Dungarvan, a two-storey medieval building goes by the puzzling name of Garvan's Church, despite being neither a church nor, as far as anyone can establish with certainty, directly connected to any saint of that name. What makes it quietly odd is the gap between what it looks like and what it apparently was: the façade carries a pointed doorway and a narrow slit window, both features more commonly associated with ecclesiastical or defensive architecture than with domestic use, yet the structure is classified as a house.

Dating to possibly the 15th or 16th century, the building measures roughly 12.6 metres by 8.9 metres internally, making it a substantial town house by the standards of late medieval Ireland. Slit windows, which are tall and very narrow openings designed to admit light while limiting exposure to the outside, appear both on the main façade and in the east gable at first-floor level, though the façade examples are now blocked. The pointed doorway suggests Gothic influence, a detail that may partly explain why later generations reached for a ecclesiastical name when they needed to describe the place. The building was assessed archaeologically in 1996 ahead of nearby development works, and has since been conserved.

The building sits on Castle Street, which places it within Dungarvan's historic core, close to the town's Norman castle. The slit window in the east gable at first-floor level is the detail most worth seeking out, as it gives the clearest sense of how the original structure was lit and organised across its two storeys.