St. Mary's Collegiate Church Gowran
| St. Mary's Collegiate Church | |
|---|---|
| Eaglais Mhuire | |
 |
|
| General information | |
| Type | Collegiate Church |
| Location | Gowran, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland |
| Address | Main St. Gowran, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland |
| Coordinates | 52°37′45″N 7°03′48″W / 52.62917°N 7.06333°WCoordinates: 52°37′45″N 7°03′48″W / 52.62917°N 7.06333°W |
| Construction started | 1225 |
| Reference no. | 214 |
| References | |
St. Mary’s Collegiate Church Gowran (Gaelic/Irish: Eaglais Mhuire), also known as the Church of the Blessed Virgin of the Assumption, is located in the centre of the town of Gowran, County Kilkenny, Ireland.The Church is located close to Gowran Castle The site is a National Monument in the care of the Gowran Development Association (GDA) and the Office of Public Works (OPW). The Church and its family connections have been of huge importance to Gowran and further afield over the centuries. The Church is called a Collegiate Church. The word Collegiate means that the priests or chaplains attached to it lived in community together. i.e. collegiately. The present church was not a monastery or an abbey. However experts believe the church was built on the site of an earlier monastery. The presence of an Ogham stone on the site, which is on display in the chancel, would suggest there was a place of worship here dating back 2000 years to Celtic times and beyond.
In 1312 A.D. Edmund Butler, Earl of Carrick and Lord Deputy of Ireland made a binding agreement before the Kings Justice in Dublin with the Dean and Chapter of St Canice's Cathedral in Kilkenny to financially support four priests in St. Mary’s Church Gowran to celebrate masses forever, for himself, his wife Joan, his son, James Butler, 1st Earl of Ormonde, his daughters and his ancestors living and dead.
The oldest inscribed monument in the church is the Christianised Ogham Stone from the 3rd/4th century found on the site during the rebuilding of the Chancel in 1826. The Gowran Ogham Stone has survived to the present day due to the fact that it was used as a building stone in another part of the Church and lay undisturbed for centuries.
The significance of Ogham stones would not have been fully understood in olden times. Many of these Ogham stones throughout Ireland were used as building stones, gate posts and even broken up to facilitate ease of transport for building or road filling. Two such examples are the Ogham stones at nearby Tullaherin which was used as a gate post and the Dunbell Ogham stones which were found during excavation of a group of six raths between 1852 and 1855. These Ogham stones were broken with sledge hammers by workmen to facilitate removal. It is fortunate that the Gowran Ogham Stone survived to the present day.
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