My 16yo daughter painted the picture below recently, at my request of course. I think she worked from a photo here on the blog. If anyone knows of other paintings, let us know as it would be great to capture them here.
We are starting a historical blog on the parish of Clonmethan on the website. If you have any stories or photographs of funerals, weddings, christenings or any other events which took place in the church or grounds, we would like to hear them. If anyone has any family ties with Clonmethan Church (St Mary’s) or the surrounding area. please let us know, and we will include them.
We have recently made connections with relatives of Fredrick Henry Aldhouse the last Rev of Clonmethan (St Mary’s) who died on the 30 August 1949 and is buried in the church. I will be writing a longer article on Fredrick Henry Aldhouse and his connection with the Church of Clonmethan (St Mary’s).
The Friends of Clonmethan have been working very hard in recent months generally tidying up the inside of the building. This not only makes things look better, but it also has revealed how solid the structure of the building is. It also reveals work to be done of course ! Below are a few pictures which reveal the extent of work done much better than words can.
It is an old saying, but also a statement by Isaac Newton, what goes up must come down. This week, it is the gates at Clonmethan which are coming down, probably for the first time in a century or more – and who knows, maybe since they first went up. Here is a video of some of the Friends of Clonmethan at work taking down the gates for restoration. Brilliant work!
Genesis 1:3 – God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And there is now light at Clonmethan, probably for the first time in 60 years or more. Well done to all.
The Board of First Fruits was an arm of the Church of Ireland, established in 1711 by Queen Anne. Its goal was to improve churches and glebe houses in Ireland. In or around 1811, the church and glebe at Clonmethan received a total of £837 10s. as shown by the parliamentary records extract below.
In today’s terms, this amount equates to about £39,000. At the time, it could buy 79 horses, 930 stones of wool or pay wages of a skilled tradesman for 5583 days (source:https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/).
While we get this site set up, here is a map of the location of the parish of Clonmethan – source https://www.townlands.ie/dublin/clonmethan/
