Funds to restore church for community use

By Dan Walsh

An allocation of €100,620 has been made for repairs to the roof, rainwater facilities, and windows of the disused Rathaspeck Church in Piercestown, with the objective of restoration for community and cultural use. It is located close to Johnstown Castle.

The announcement was made during the week as part of the Historic Structures Fund by Minster James Browne, Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

Rathaspeck Church is situated about 5 kilometres from Wexford town on a raised piece of land that is believed to have been a rath, hence the name – Ráth Easpaig “the bishop’s ringfort.”

It is a classic Board of First Fruits funded Church of Ireland church built in 1824. A 14th century catholic church predated the structure but this was already described as ‘ruinous’ in the Down Survey of the 1650s.

The graveyard is the final resting place of United Irishman Cornelius Grogan. Grogan had served as the High Sherriff of Wexford in 1779 and in 1783 was elected to serve as a politician for the Irish Parliament constituency of Enniscorthy.

When the 1798 rebellion broke out in County Wexford Grogan joined the republican movement of the United Irishmen and became an army commander. When the rebellion failed Grogan was brought to court and though he tried to state he had been forced to take up his position in the United Irishmen the British didn’t believe him and he was executed on Wednesday, June 28^th 1798, he was hanged and beheaded on Wexford bridge like several other rebel leaders and his body was thrown into the River Slaney. Later supporters of Grogan recovered his body from the waters and interred him at Rathaspeck.

The church itself closed in 1971 but between 1984 and 2009 was home to the Wexford Model Railway Club but due to the deteriorating condition of the church this agreement came to an end in 2009.

The restoration of Rathaspeck Church is to be welcomed. It is a landmark building with links to the distant past and long forgotten families on the edge of Johnstown Castle, now Wexford’s best tourist and visitor attraction, and it ticks all the boxes in retaining a valuable piece of our rural past.