Survey Data

Reg No

15304005


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Artistic, Social


Original Use

Church/chapel


In Use As

Church/chapel


Date

1830 - 1850


Coordinates

240403, 263986


Date Recorded

30/07/2004


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Freestanding T-plan Roman Catholic chapel, built c.1830, comprising two-bay nave, single-bay transepts and a three-stage tower on square plan with corner buttresses, string courses and a slated spire to northeast side (nave). Pitched natural slate roofs with raised limestone verges, carved ashlar kneeler stones and carved stone cross finials. Constructed of roughly coursed rubble limestone over ashlar plinth with flush ashlar quoins to corners. Pointed-arched openings with timber Y-tracery and stained glass windows. Pointed-arched doorcase to north face of tower with carved limestone surrounds, limestone hoodmoulding over and timber sheeted double-doors. Clockface to second stage of tower with paired pointed-arched louvred vents to belfry on third stage. The church is bounded to the front by a rubble limestone wall with semi-circular limestone coping over. Grotto to north surrounded by wrought-iron and cast-iron boundary railings. Interior is plainly finished with three round-headed Gothic niches with ogee-headed frames and crocketed finials to the altar wall (no chancel or east window). Marble monuments include those to Rev Michael Duff (1869), by Farrell and Son, and to Rev. B. Moore (1862). Located just to south of the centre of Multyfarnham.

Appraisal

An attractive early nineteenth-century T-plan Roman Catholic church, which maintains its early form and character. The T-plan layout is typical of Roman Catholic churches in Ireland in the early post-Emancipation period. It is built in a light Gothic Revival-style with high quality carved limestone detailing throughout. This church may incorporate the fabric of an earlier 'barn' church on this site c. 1820. The slated tower gives the building much greater prominence than the normal T-plan church and is built in a sufficiently different style to suggest it was added later, perhaps c. 1860, at a time when the Catholic Church was increasing its wealth and influence. This appealing church remains a local landmark and an important part of the architectural heritage of Westmeath.