Overview
A roofless medieval parish church and its square three-stage tower stand in a working graveyard on the edge of Carrickmacross, on Magheross Road a few minutes’ walk from the town centre in County Monaghan. It is a small stop, best taken as part of the town’s heritage trail rather than a trip of its own. The payoff for the detour is on the wall: a plaque that records, in plain terms, that the church ‘was ruined in the Rebellion of 1641 and rebuilt in the year 1682’.
History
The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage records fires here in the 1590s and in 1641, followed by rebuilding in 1682. The Buildings of Ireland survey dates the first church to about 1550, a pre-Reformation parish church that passed to the Church of Ireland after the Reformation. Local tradition puts something older on the spot again: it is still called Old St Finbarr’s, and the graveyard St Finbarr’s cemetery, after a story that the saint founded a church here. In the wars of the 1590s English forces held the building as a garrison, and the MacMahons of Farney, the Gaelic clan that ran this corner of Monaghan, burned them out. It was ruined again in the 1641 rebellion, then rebuilt in 1682 with the square tower to the north. In 1788 the parish vestry decided to build a new church on Carrickmacross’s main street; the congregation moved there, and Magheross was left to the weather.
What to look for
- The skull-and-crossbones headstone. The one carving people remember is a weathered memento mori that reads more pirate than parish, worth hunting down among the older stones.
- The tower. Rubble limestone with tooled string courses and dressed-stone quoins. Admire it from outside the ruined walls.
- The gate piers. Square late-17th-century ashlar piers with blocked cornices and ball finials, now hung with replacement metal gates.
- The graveyard. Still in use, with a mix of Catholic and Church of Ireland burials.
Practical
The church is on Magheross Road just outside the centre, a few minutes’ walk from Carrickmacross. No visiting hours or ticketing are listed for the site, so treat it as a visit to a graveyard. Keep to the graveyard paths, give people visiting graves space and stay outside the ruined walls. Watch your footing on the uneven ground and treat the burials with the respect a working graveyard deserves.
The town trail
Magheross is one stop on the self-guided Carrickmacross Historic Town Trail, which links it to St Joseph’s Church, the Church of Ireland St Finbarr’s, the Famine graveyard, and the old courthouse and toll house. Heading back into town, the Carrickmacross Lace Gallery shows the fine bobbin lace the town is known for, and the Carrickmacross Workhouse gives a sobering look at the Famine years. For more regional history, the Monaghan County Museum in Monaghan town is a longer hop north. Give the church a short stop on your way round the trail, and make finding the skull-and-crossbones stone the thing you come away with.