08/08/2025
Our report on the monitoring of Community Monuments Fund (CMF) conservation works at St Mogue’s Church, Rossinver, Co. Leitrim in late 2024 and early 2025 has now been added to our website.
The 2024-5 works focused on the north wall of the church, which required significant structural intervention.
During the works a charnel pit was identified dug up against the internal side of the north wall. No in situ burials were present within the pit within 0.5m of the wall, however frequent disarticulated bone was present. It was interpreted that the pit was used to reinter disarticulated human remains encountered during the digging of grave cuts elsewhere within the church. The cut was evident down to foundation level, and may well be the cause of the structural issues to the north wall.
An arched niche, likely for a later tomb, is present partially recessed into the internal façade of the north wall. This was in a poor state prior to the works as all of the dressed stone casing of the niche has been removed. The works consolidated the niche, particularly the stones in the rear that were separating from the rubble core of the wall.
During the works a cup-marked stone was retrieved from the foundation of the north wall. This is the second cup-marked stone to be identified in the immediate vicinity of the church, with the second recorded in the graveyard. These are the only two examples of cup-marked stones currently known from Co. Leitrim, and they suggest an earlier phase of activity at the site prior to the establishment of the monastic foundation in the early medieval period.
A number of observations were also made on features of the church that have been revealed during the recent CMF repair, maintenance and consolidation works. Observations were made on the remains of a late medieval or post-medieval gated entrance structure; the evidence for significant reworking of the external façade of the east gable and its window layout; and on the priests residence built into the west end of the church in the late medieval period.
Dressed masonry was also identified, reused as a gravestone in the graveyard south of the church, as well as in the current graveyard wall.
You can now read the monitoring report for 2024-2025 on our website: www.archaeologyplan.com/projects
