Smithstown Chapel is situated around 4kms south east of Castlecomer in County Kilkenny. This neat ruin has a somewhat ‘barn’ style form, with high-pitched ceiling, pointed windows and would have had a thatched roof during its lifetime. The openings of the windows and doorway are evidence of a contemporary Georgian Gothic theme so we can estimate that the church was built in the mid to late 18th century. This period of construction coincided with the slow unravelling of the Penal Laws in Ireland in the late 18th early 19th century in the run up to the Catholic Relief Act of 1829. The Dúchas National Schools Collection of the 1930s states that structure was what is known as a ‘Chapel of Ease’. A Chapel of Ease is usually a secondary place of worship other than the parish church, built within the bounds of the parish for those who cannot reach the main church conveniently due to distance or other reasons. It would be logical to believe that with a now closed chapel and now closed school the area of Smithstown must have been far more densely populated pre-famine, probably due to the coalmining work in Castlecomer, thus necessitating such amenities. A student named James Love gave the history of the church as recounted to him by Joseph Love of Aghamucky, Co. Kilkenny, “There is an old ruined Church in a graveyard in the townland of Smithstown, quite adjacent to our School. It is nearly a century ago since it was abandoned, and given up as a Church. It was a Chapel of Ease before it became a ruin, and the people of the district, and the passers-by used to often visit it. The parish Church was in Castlecomer, and is still there. When the Smithstown Church was in bad repair, the people let if fall, because they said that it was not needed in the vicinity on account of there being another Church near by, so it was then abandoned, and never used as a Church again. The graveyard in which the ruin is is still used as burial ground, by the friends of the people who are buried there.” (Roll No. 14626). A second report from the same school states that the chapel was abandoned for 85 or 90 years, considering these records were made in the 1930s this would put its date of closure at some time around the 1840s. However, the National Monuments Service puts its date of closure to 1899. There are very few remaining headstones and grave markers, regardless this is an unusual and attractive small ruin.

GPS: 52.79342, -7.17574