The small late medieval church at Killeenagarriff is situated in a very picturesque landscape, set down beside a small river and is accessed by a tree lined walkway. The origin of the name Killeenagarriff (aka Killinagarriff) are many, some of which are quite humorous, in some sources it is described as the ‘Little Church of the Rough Place’, others as ‘The Little Church of the Rough People’! Logainm states that it is officially ‘The church of the Son of Cú Garbh’, seeing as Cú means ‘hound’ it would translate as ‘The Church of the Son of the Hound of Garbh’. The antiquarian TJ Westropp writing in 1905 dated the church to the 15th century. A local history book written in 1991 by Joe Carroll and Pat Touhy, ‘Village by the Shannon’ spoke about what happened during the time of the reformation, “In Killeenagariff which was in the hands of the Butlers and where the O’Heffernans and the Mulryans were the chief families, the Catholics were driven from their church following the defeat of the Mulryans by the British, Thirty years later the Mulryans once again laid claim to the church, but once again they lost it…Barrington brought his army there and laid siege to the Mulryan stronghold in Killeenagarriff”. It was confiscated again during the Down Survey and Westropp stated that lands at ‘Killgarruffe’ were granted to S. Molyneux in October 1666 along with lands at Clonkeen. It does appear that it was already in ruins by the time it was granted to Molyneux as Samuel Lewis in his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) states, “The church was destroyed in the war of 1641, and was rebuilt, but is now in ruins”. It is not clear when or for how long this next iteration of the church survived but it was certainly abandoned for quite some time before 1837.
GPS: 52.65813, -8.46872