Church, Glebe, Cloghan, Co. Donegal
In the quiet countryside near Glenmore, County Donegal, the weathered ruins of Kilteevoge Old Church stand as a testament to centuries of religious life in rural Ireland.
Church, Glebe, Cloghan, Co. Donegal
The church’s history can be traced through a remarkable piece of evidence: a silver communion plate donated by the widow of Thomas Davies in 1691, which bears an inscription recording that she rebuilt the church that year. This wasn’t the building’s last renovation; it underwent another restoration in 1733 and continued serving the local parish for nearly 150 years until St. John’s Church was constructed at Glenmore between 1877 and 1879.
Today, what remains of this historic church measures 15.7 metres by 7.3 metres internally, its walls constructed from rubble with carefully crafted ashlar quoins made from narrow, vertically positioned stone blocks. The eastern gable, now reduced to just 1.5 metres in height, merges into the western edge of the graveyard mound, topped rather unusually with a rock basin set in concrete beside a modern gap in the wall. The northern wall survives only partially, standing 2.4 metres high for about 9.5 metres of its original length, with its eastern end squared off during later rebuilding work that incorporated what appears to be a chamfered fragment from an old doorway.
The western gable preserves the outline of a central doorway up to about 2 metres high, though it’s now blocked and has lost both its head and rear arch, with a modern altar built against its interior face. Three splayed windows punctuate the southern wall, though only fragments of the two eastern examples remain at ground level. The western window, however, is remarkably well preserved and exceptionally large at approximately 3 metres high, still displaying its rounded head and rear arch; a rare survivor that hints at the church’s former architectural dignity.





