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I Location

II General Description

The ruined church known as St Feichin's church (Tempull Mór Feichin) is a single-cell structure incorporating some Romanesque features. It has an E window (obscured by ivy) and two tall, narrow, round-headed S windows of one recessed order, splayed on the interior. The church was once divided into an upper and lower level at the W end and has a small, low, square window in the N wall and a blocked doorway with inclined jambs in the upper W wall. There is also a rectangular window high up in the W end of the S wall, with a row of holes for joists below. A roll is carved on all the exterior angles of the building apart from the NE angle. There are other building remains on the site but these are very overgrown. Sculpture is found on the very weathered rebuilt S doorway.

III Exterior Features

1. Doorways

(i) S doorway, rebuilt

Round headed of two orders, with a tympanum of shaped and irregular stones, which rests on a wide, flat lintel, both probably inserted when the doorway was rebuilt.

Dimensions

First order

No bases, jambs with a deep hollow on the reveal and angle roll. There are deep hollows at top and bottom of the N face of the W jamb, probably for door fixings. Above the jambs are massive capitals with integral necking. W capital: on the S and W faces lions confront across the SE angle and appear to share one head. Each has an arched neck and raised haunches. The limbs, in contrast to the rounded bulk of the body, are spindly. The lion on the W face is more readily readable than that on the S face; a drilled eye is visible, as are the claws of the rear foot, and a foliate tail curls over its back. The S lion has a compressed appearance as it is carved across a narrower surface than the W lion. The N (inner) face of the capital is undecorated. E capital: as W capital, but more severely weathered.

Second order

No bases, jambs with angle roll. W capital: too weathered to read. E capital: although very weathered the forms of two beasts confronted across the angle or with a shared head on the angle can be made out. In the arch there are ten voussoirs of varying size. All are carved with a single head, apart from voussoir 10, which has two heads. The carving is in extremely poor condition but it is clear that most of the heads are human apart from voussoir 4, which is a beakhead. There are no imposts, the arch and chamfered label rest directly on the capitals of the outer order. Adjacent to the capitals on the s. face are reset corbels carved with human heads. These are severely weathered and no features can be made out.

VII History

Gwynn and Hadcock (1970, 160) record that an early monastery was founded at Ballysadare by St Feichin of Fore in the 7thc. and that an Augustinian Abbey existed there in the 12thc., possibly prior to 1166. The Augustinian Canons moved to a new site a short distance to the W of the original site (Killanin and Duignan). Archdall records that the abbey was burned in 1179 and again in 1188 (?source) and the Annals of Connaught record that the area from Ballysadare southward was ruined in 1228. Gwynn and Hadcock suggest that this may have led to the Abbey Church being rebuilt.

VIII Comments/Opinions

Leask compares the heads on the doorway with those at Inchagoill in Galway. The building is now almost completely obscured by ivy (2003). A number of fragments from Ballysadare are now held in the National Museum of Ireland, two are Romanesque.

Font fragment: this has a thick roll at the base and carved immediately above this with a row of half-palmettes, some confronting and some back-to-back. The pattern is irregular the base of the bowl is flattened and there is a central wide hole in the basin. (h. 0.23 m x w. 0.57 m x d.0.26 m)

Fragment with chip-carved decoration: (h. 0.42 m x w. at bottom 0.16 m x w. at top 0.15 m x d. 0.15 m).

IX Bibliography