Old Church of Ballymacrinan

This site is on private property please do not trespass.

As we continue along this road on your right hand side within the fields there is the ruins of the old church of Ballymacrinan. People had an innate desire to gather in community to celebrate, bemoan or worship on different occasions and for diverse reasons. The need of shelter for those gatherings saw the first chapels being built. Our parish had many small shelters that were used as chapels. With the passing of time and an increase in numbers, bigger chapels were built to accommodate the increased numbers. Today we boast of two beautiful churches, namely St. Imy’s, Killimer and St Senan’s, Knockerra. Folklore and maps however reveal that some form of churches existed in other townlands of the parish, some that we have already met in the old Burrane graveyard.

A mound of rubble is all that remains from the old church at Ballymacrinan which was in the centre of a field owned by the Browne family, east of Michael Dixon’s house.

This Petty Map from 1663 shows two churches in the general area of where the Killimer church stands today and where we think the smaller Ballymacrinan church stood in the past.