After about ten years into the Plantation of Ulster, Nicholas Pynnar was appointed ‘to survey and to make a return of the proceedings and performance of conditions of the undertakers, servitors, and natives planted’ in the six escheated counties of Armagh, Tyrone, Donegal, Cavan, Fermanagh, and Londonderry. Pynnar carried out his rather inconclusive survey (another had to be done three years later) between December 1618 and March 1619.
One thing that did come out of Pynnar’s survey was a recommendation to build a ‘chapel of ease’ in the newly established village of Lowtherstown. The village then comprised staff of, and settlers brought in by, the undertaker settler Gerald Lowther who himself resided in Necerne Castle. The village was renamed Irvinestown in the 1680s some time after the Lowther family estate passed to the Irvine family.
For more detail on ‘undertakers’ and Gerald Lowther see my Necerne Castle review.
A ‘chapel of ease’ was a simple, secondary church built within a parish such that people did not have to travel to the main parish church for worship.
Not much is known about the original church apart from the fact that it was refurbished in 1667 and that its greatest claim to fame (fact or fiction, who knows?) is that a section of King William III’s army worshipped here on its way to the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. My reader will recall that it was at the Battle of the Boyne (just north of Dublin) that Protestant King William III defeated Catholic King James II thereby securing the protestant ascendancy to the British throne.
In 1734 the church was rebuilt as attested to by an inscription stone over the tower doorway – “In the year of our Lord 1734, this church was rebuilt and the steeple erected. Pat Delany, DD Rector”.
By the early 1800s the church had again began to fall into decay and in December 1828 it was replaced with the present Church of Ireland church ( a short distance away) which went on to become the Parish Church of Derryvullan North in 1874.
Today the only part of Delany’s old church remaining is the square clock-tower – in its prominent location at the southern end of Irvinestown’s main street.
The old church’s graveyard, recently revitalised using money from the National Lottery, lies along side and to the rear of the clock-tower. The oldest recorded gravestone therein is that of Hubert Holmes who died on 18th February 1694. Some members of the Irvine family from Necarne Castle are also buried here.
In my review Commonwealth War Graves – Irvinestown I refer to two local cemeteries containing Commonwealth war graves in this small town. I fail to mention that there was a third cemetery which contains a war grave and that is, off course, this graveyard at the old church. It contains one war grave from World War I.
This blog entry is one of a group (loop) of entries based on many trips to Enniskillen. I suggest you continue with my next entry – Commonwealth War Graves – Irvinestown – or to start the loop at the beginning go to my introductory entry – “Fare thee well Enniskillen, ………..”
The Rambling Wombat 