Furness Church

Furness Church
Forenaghts Church
Séipéal Fhornochta
Furness Church
53°13′24″N6°36′05″W / 53.223363°N 6.601476°W / 53.223363; -6.601476
Location	Forenaghts Great, County Kildare
Country	Ireland
Denomination	Church of Ireland
Previous denomination	Pre-Reformation Catholic
History
Founded	13th century
Architecture
Style	Gothic
Administration
Diocese	Kildare and Leighlin
National monument of Ireland
Official name	Furness Church
Reference no.	394

Furness Church is a 13th-century Norman church located in County Kildare, Ireland.

Location

Furness Church is located outside Furness House; 2 km (1.3 mi) southeast of Johnstown, County Kildare.

The building and site

Furness contains a 'calendar stone' dating to c. 3500 BC. ^[1]

The church is in the grounds of Furness House, owned by Patrick Guinness. The church is Early Christian (c. AD 500) and it was extended by the Normans in 1210. On the Norman conquest of Ireland after 1169, lands in Kildare were assigned to Adam de Hereford who in turn bequeathed them to the Abbey of St Thomas the Martyr, Dublin. This monastery extended the church in 1210, allowing a roof for the congregation. The name derives from the Irish fornocht, meaning "bare hill." ^[2] In the 1530s the monastery was dissolved by the Crown and its land at Furness was bought by the Ashe family, merchants in Naas.

The church has doors and windows edged with tufa, a form of limestone favoured by Cistercians in Europe from the 12th century onward. The exception is a leper window, usually blocked up now in older churches. ^[3]

At some point the church burned down and was abandoned. Despite being Protestant, the Nevill family owning the land allowed local Catholics to continue to bury their dead around the church alongside their ancestors. One gravestone from the early 18th century reads IHS, signifying a Catholic burial. Burials stopped in the 1840s when the then owners built a wall around the estate as a famine relief measure. ^{[4] [5] [6]}

A standing stone is located 300 m (330 yd) north-northeast of the church. ^[7]

References

1. "Video: Palladian home owned by Arthur Guinness' descendants can be yours for €2.5m". Irish Independent. 9 September 2015.
2. "Fornocht/Forenaghts | logainm.ie".
3. "Another round for Guinness mansion in Kildare". The Irish Times .
4. "megalithomania: Forenaghts Great (Kildare) :: Church :: Visit notes".
5. "Forenaghts, Co. Kildare - # - Shadowsandstone.com Photography by Ken Williams". Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
6. "[Archive '2014] Furness House".
7. Map, The Megalithic Portal and Megalith. "Forenaghts Great".