Church, Dollas Upper, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Churches & Chapels
Somewhere in Dollas Upper, a church once stood, and now nobody quite knows where.
The site has been, in the understated phrasing of the archaeological record, "forgotten in the townland", which is a rather remarkable fate for a place that appears in documents stretching back centuries and carries a legend rooted in the earliest days of Irish Christianity.
The antiquarian Thomas Johnson Westropp, writing in 1904 and 1905, gathered together the scattered references to this place and its shifting spellings: Doilath in 1410, Dolyth in 1418, Dolun and Dolith both recorded in 1615, and Dologh in a Down Survey map of 1657, which shows a ruined church already standing in the townland at that point. The Down Survey was a mid-seventeenth-century mapping project that documented land ownership across Ireland, and its depiction of a ruin suggests the building had already fallen out of use well before that date. The oldest thread connecting to this place, however, runs back to the "Tripartite Life of St Patrick", a medieval hagiographical text. According to that account, a local chief named Dola opposed Patrick during the construction of Grene Church nearby, and the saint, rather than destroying him, drove him away to Dalmodo, which is understood to be Dollas, in the territory of Airther Cliach. Whether that story preserves any genuine historical memory or is simply origin-myth dressed as biography, it does at least explain the place name and give the site a deeper narrative weight.
No structural remains appear to survive above ground, and the precise location within the townland has not been identified. Dollas Graveyard, which carries its own separate archaeological reference, is considered a possible location for the church, and a visit there may be the closest a person can get to this otherwise vanished site. Graveyards in rural Ireland frequently mark the footprint of early ecclesiastical enclosures long after the church buildings themselves have disappeared, so it is worth looking for any trace of enclosing banks or unusually ancient-looking stonework. Access to and condition of the graveyard are not detailed in the available records, so local enquiry beforehand would be sensible.