Furness Church facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Furness Church |
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| Forenaghts Church | |
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Séipéal Fhornochta
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 Furness Church
Location in County Kildare
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| 53°13′24″N 6°36′05″W / 53.223363°N 6.601476°W | |
| Location | Forenaghts Great, County Kildare, Ireland |
| Country | Ireland |
| Denomination | Church of Ireland |
| Previous denomination | Pre-Reformation Catholic |
| History | |
| Founded | 13th century |
| Architecture | |
| Style | Gothic |
| Administration | |
| Diocese | Kildare and Leighlin |
Furness Church is a very old church from the 13th century. It was built in the Norman style and can be found in County Kildare, Ireland. It's a special place with a long history!
Contents
Where is Furness Church?
Furness Church is located just outside Furness House. You can find it about 2 kilometers (or 1.3 miles) southeast of Johnstown in County Kildare.
The History of Furness Church
The church stands on the land of Furness House. It started as an Early Christian church around the year 500 AD. Later, around 1210, the Normans made it bigger. The Normans were people from Normandy (in France) who came to Ireland. After the Norman conquest of Ireland in 1169, land in Kildare was given to a person named Adam de Hereford. He then gave it to a monastery in Dublin called the Abbey of St Thomas the Martyr. This monastery helped to expand the church in 1210, adding a roof so people could gather inside.
The name "Furness" comes from the Irish word fornocht, which means "bare hill." In the 1530s, the monastery was closed down by the Crown during a time called the Dissolution of the Monasteries. This meant that many monasteries were shut down. The land at Furness was then bought by the Ashe family, who were merchants from Naas.
What Does the Church Look Like?
The church has special doors and windows. They are edged with a type of stone called tufa. Tufa is a kind of limestone that was popular with Cistercian monks in Europe from about 1150.
One interesting feature is a "leper window." This was a small window, usually low to the ground, that might have allowed people with leprosy (a serious skin disease) to watch church services from outside. Today, these windows are usually blocked up in old churches.
Later Years and Burials
At some point, the church was damaged by fire and left empty. Even though the Nevill family, who owned the land later, were Protestant, they allowed local Catholic families to continue burying their loved ones around the church. This was a way for people to be buried near their ancestors.
You can still see some old gravestones there. One from the early 1700s has the letters IHS carved on it. This symbol often means it was a Catholic burial. Burials at the church stopped around the 1840s. At that time, the owners of the land built a wall around the estate. This project was a way to provide work for people during a very difficult time in Ireland.
A tall standing stone is also located about 300 meters north-northeast of the church.
