This church was built around 1000CE to honour the founder St. Fortchern who the teacher of St Finian of Clonard.
The ruin is quite delightful with very thick, strong walls and a round topped window. Inside there is a rectangular baptismal font.
Another tricky one to find. From Borrishead east along the road marked with signs for the South Leinster Way walking route - this leaves Borris from the R702 at the east end of the town. Take the third left and then take the left fork after 1km. At the end of this road you will come to an odd junction where five roads meet. Turn left and immediately right and continue until you reach a t-junction. Turn right and then left at the next cross roads. The church is 100m along from the junction.
This is an explanation of (and a bit of a disclaimer for) the coordinates I provide. Where a GPS figure is given this is the master for all other coordinates. According to my Garmin these are quite accurate. Where there is no GPS figure the 6 figure grid reference is master for the others. This may not be very accurate as it could have come from the OS maps and could have been read by eye. Consequently, all other cordinates are going to have inaccuracies. The calculation of Longitude and Latitude uses an algorithm that is not 100% accurate. The long/lat figures are used as a basis for calculating the UTM & ITM coordinates. Consequently, UTM & ITM coordinates are slightly out. UTM is a global coordinate system - Universal Transverse Mercator - that is at the core of the GPS system. ITM is the new coordinate system - Irish Transverse Mercator - that is more accurate and more GPS friendly than the Irish Grid Reference system. This will be used on the next generation of Irish OS maps. |