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St Finaghta, Kilfinaghta, Clare

Location
(52°45′6″N, 8°47′8″W)
Kilfinaghta
R 47 67
pre-1974 traditional (Republic of Ireland) Clare
now Clare
medieval Killaloe
now Killaloe
medieval St Finaghta
  • Tessa Garton

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Description

A ruined ivy-covered church, 19.2m x 6.7m (Westropp), now used as graveyard. The W part of the N wall is built of large limestone blocks, irregularly coursed but carefully fitted, providing evidence of an earlier structure. There are yellow sandstone quoins at the E angles, a blocked doorway and sedilia at the E end of the N wall, and a late medieval S door with plain jambs and a chamfered arch. The W wall has collapsed. 13thc. features include a double E window, with aumbry and niche to S. All 13thc. material is of coarse red sandstone with quartz inclusions, the remaining fabric is limestone.

History

'Kilfinity' recorded in taxation of 1302.

Features

Exterior Features

Windows

Exterior Decoration

Corbel tables, corbels

Furnishings

Other

Comments/Opinions

Westropp (Pl. XI 5) illustrates the exterior of the S window with a continuous frame of three roll mouldings on arch, jambs and sill . Leask refers to this window in his discussion of the 'School of the West', but does not discuss the E window, which also belongs to this style. (Both lights of the E window were filled with rubble at the time of the 1992 visit, but in 2003 the upper part of the N light had been opened up). A number of comparisons can be made with the sculpture at Drumacoo (Galway); the central shaft with bobbins is similar to those on the jambs of the doorway at Drumacoo, and the capital with a row of beast heads can be compared to a capital on the R jamb at Drumacoo, which has a similar row of heads, but without long snouts. The sculpture at Kilfinaghta is however cruder and less refined, perhaps due to the use of coarse sandstone rather than fine limestone. Capitals with human heads are common in Irish Romanesque, and are also found in other examples of the 'School of the West', such as Corcomroe and Abbeyknockmoy. On the basis of style, a date in the 1220's or 1230's seems likely.

Bibliography

M.M Killanin and M.V. Duignan, Shell Guide to Ireland. Dublin, 1962, 2nd ed. 1967, 422.

H.G. Leask, Irish Churches and Monastic Buildings, Vol. II. Dundalk 1966, 66.

T.J. Westropp, 'The Churches of County Clare, and the origin of the ecclesiastical divisions in that county.' PRIA, 22, 1900, 151-2, no. 97.