Kilfinan Church (in ruins), Gorteenara, Co. Kilkenny
Co. Kilkenny |
Churches & Chapels
A ruined church dedicated to St Finian sits on a low hill in County Kilkenny, occupying the north-east corner of a sub-triangular graveyard that itself overlies an even older enclosure beneath it.
That layering of sacred use across time is quietly remarkable, but the calendar adds another wrinkle. The local pattern, a traditional gathering at a holy site tied to a patron saint's feast day, was held here in August rather than on St Finian's actual feast day. Nobody now knows with certainty why the community kept the wrong date, but the practice continued until it was suppressed around 1810, as recorded by Carrigan in 1905.
The nave walls and ivy-clad west gable have survived well enough to read the building clearly. The church is built of roughly coursed limestone rubble, with larger blocks used at the base and corners, a technique known as base-batter, where the wall splays slightly outward at ground level to add stability. The nave measures roughly 11.5 metres east to west and 5.8 metres north to south. The chancel, the eastern section used by the clergy during services, has fared less well and survives only as low foundation mounds, though the chancel arch still stands to springer level at about two metres, and the tie-stones that once anchored the chancel side walls still project from the nave's east wall. Two doorways pierce the nave, one in the south wall and one directly opposite in the north, both originally pointed openings. Notably, both retain internal draw-bar holes, the sockets cut into the jambs to hold a timber bar that would have been slid across to secure the doors from within. Three windows lit the nave: a round-headed embrasure in the south wall, a second in the north wall now obscured by ivy, and a flat-headed window centred in the west gable.
The church and graveyard are in private ownership, so access is not guaranteed without prior arrangement with the landowner. The site sits on pasture ground, with rising terrain to the north and east screening the view in those directions, which gives the ruin an unexpectedly enclosed feeling despite being on a hill.