2008:993 - St Tighernach’s Church, Clones, Monaghan

Monitoring took place in October 2008 during groundworks for the reconstruction of part of the stone boundary wall at St Tighernach’s Church of Ireland church, The Diamond, Clones, Co. Monaghan, on behalf of the Representative Church Body of St Tighernach’s Church. The work was occasioned by the collapse, in June 1999, of a section of the church boundary retaining wall, 18m long and 4.5m high, following the removal of a supporting structure. The wall failed near foundation level, resulting in the stones of the wall and the retained graveyard material collapsing into an adjacent low-level laneway and garden on the north-east side. The reconstruction was undertaken in accordance with the Conservation Method Statement prepared by Fitzpatrick Consulting (NI) Limited, Galwally Lodge, Belfast.
A map of Clones from 1591 shows a roofless building, with a cross on the gable, indicated as ‘an Old Chapel’ and probably located where the present St Tighernach’s Parish Church now stands overlooking the Diamond. This earlier church is designated MO011–010006, ‘church, possible’, in the RMP. The presence of a church on the Diamond in 1696 is suggested by a date stone (MO011–010007 ‘inscribed stone’) built into the boundary wall beside the gate of the present church. A drawing of 1741 shows a large cruciform church on the site with a tower at the west end. This building was pulled down in 1822 and the present church was completed by 1825. The transepts were added in 1857.
The scheme involved the removal of the collapsed debris and the construction of a reinforced concrete wall, with the original wall stones replaced as a cladding over the new concrete structure. All excavations were within recently disturbed materials – i.e. the debris from the 1999 collapse – and there was no excavation of previously undisturbed ground. Removal of the collapsed material exposed a c. 3.5m-high section face consisting of 1.4–1.8m of graveyard soil overlying firm natural sandy clay which forms the hill on which the church is built. The graveyard soil had a fairly uniform appearance and contained numerous bones but only one in situ burial was evident. All human remains found in the collapsed material were collected and subsequently reinterred as directed by the Church Vestry.
Surprisingly few artefacts of archaeological interest were recovered from the considerable volume of spoil, which was temporarily stored in a nearby property. There were two fragments of roof ridge tile, both with a similar hard sandy fabric, glazed dark-purple/brown and decorated with a single incised wavy line. These should date to the 17th or 18th century and are likely to have come from one of the earlier churches on the site. A local source is possible; a tile kiln is recorded at Belturbet in 1610 (Irish Patent Rolls of James I, 423). One damaged clay-pipe bowl, glazed yellow, with a rouletted rim and a leaf pattern along the mould seam front and back, is an import datable to the early 18th century.