Ecclesiastical Sites in County Kilkenny.

This early Christian church consisting of a flat headed west doorway and antae projecting from the west gable wall. The chancel and rounded arch are of a later date. The 29.25 Meter (96 FT) round tower nearby is devoid of its original top. To the west of the church in a field is a high cross, decorated with interlaced circular bosses on each face.

All that remains on the site of this twelfth or thirteenth church is a rectangular tower that appears to have been fortified and heightened in the sixteenth century. Nearby is the 12.2 meter (40 ft) stump of a round tower with a modern door at ground level.

This priory was founded in 1193 for Cannons regular of the Augustinian order from Bobmin in Cornwall, by Geoffrey de Marisco, justiciar of Ireland. The impressive remains amount to about two ha (5 acres), most of the buildings we see today date from the fourteenth and fifteenth century. South of the church is a double enclosure surrounded by two set of walls. Protection of the outer wall is afforded by four square mural towers pierced with arrow loops. A fifth tower in the south east serves as a gate house. The church has a high central tower, a long nave, a choir at the east end, a north transepts opening into another chapel, and a chapel south of the choir. The prior probably lived in the tower on the north west corner of the nave.

The nave of this thirteenth century church has triple lancets with trefoil heads and at each end of the aisle twin lancets. The tower dates from the fourteenth or fifteenth century. A nineteenth century church, no longer in use occupies the site of the original choir.

This little church probably dates from the tenth or eleventh century, the chancel was a later addition in the fifteenth century. There are antae east and west. Outside near the south west corner is a Ogam stone. Near the church is a round tower approximately 20 Metres (70 ft) high the upper portion of which is in ruin.

This Cistercian abbey was founded by William Marshall in 1207, at one time it claimed to have the largest church of any monastery in Ireland. It was largely rebuilt in the late eighteenth early nineteenth century, retaining the lancet windows and other architectural features from the thirteenth century. It is now a Roman Catholic church.

In the graveyard south of the choir are two high crosses, not original to the site.

This church dates from the twelfth century, most notable feature is a Romanesque west doorway, the building was much altered in the sixteenth century. Behind the church is a High Cross with a Crucifixion on the east face, with a much weathered biblical scene below.

William Marshall the younger founded this Augustinian house in 1220. A Protestant C of I church now occupies the restored thirteenth or fourteenth century lady chapel. The ruins adjacent to the church are those of the choir of the original church. Nothing is to be seen of the original claustral buildings.

This church now used for Roman Catholic services was originally a Dominican Friary founded about 1226. The present church is built on the site of the thirteenth century nave and fourteenth century south wing. In the fifteenth century a tower and decorated windows were added. In the south wing is a alabaster statue of the holy trinity, to whom the Friary was dedicated.

Jerpoint was a house of the Cistercian order founded in 1180 by Donal MacGillapatrick, king of Ossory. The choir, transepts and nave date from the late twelfth early thirteenth century, the present east window is of the fourteenth century, but the three light west window is original. The nave is separated from the north isle by a row of six arches, only one arch survives on the south side. Each transept contains two eastward facing chapels. Inside the church is a double piscine and sedilia as well as some thirteen century effigies and sixteenth century tombs.

In addition to all the usual claustral buildings, the abbey is said also to have had water mill's.

Read about Jerpoint Abbey from Samuel Lewis in 1837