2024:870 - Ballynakill Abbey, Galway

Three phases of conservation works took place at Ballynakill Abbey, Glinsk, Co. Galway in 2022, 2023 and 2024, under Ministerial Consent No C001093. The works were funded by the Heritage Council and were monitored by the writer.

The monument consists of a medieval parish church and attached chapel (RMP No. GA007-035), which are located within an enclosure (RMP No. GA007-035002) and a graveyard (RMP No. GA007-035001). The remains of the church are orientated east north-east/west south-west and consist of a plain nave, constructed of roughly hewn and roughly coursed limestone blocks, which measures 23.7m long and c. 7.8m wide. The surviving walls consist of a 1.5-2.4m high section of the south wall to the west of the chapel, with an attached section of the west gable and 1-2m high section of the north wall at its east end with the attached east gable which stands 1.4-2m high. All four walls were almost completely overgrown.

The attached chapel extends south south-east from the east end of the south wall of the church and stands to its full height of 3-3.4m with a 5m high south gable. It is built of regularly coursed, roughly hewn, limestone blocks with ashlar quoins and cut and dressed limestone blocks used in the construction of  a fine round-headed doorway in the north wall and four of the five window opes.  The south gable contains a large tracery window, which is blocked up internally by a monument to Sir John Burke. An effigy of William Burke is located near the east end of the internal face of the gable.

The conservation works consisted of the removal of vegetation, the consolidation and repointing of the walls of the church and chapel and the retrieval of loose and collapsed stone around the site.  A number of stockpiles of stone were investigated, including two stockpiles from a graveyard clean-up (which was monitored  by the writer) which took place in the late 1990s, as well as collapsed material located within and immediately outside the walls of the buildings. A number of cut and dressed blocks, architectural fragments and a quernstone were recovered. They are now stored in a metal gabion outside the south gable of the chapel.