Churchclara / Clárach an Teampaill

A fragment or portion of the base of a baptismal font is located in the ruins of the old parish church in Churchclara; it is identified and indexed in the Archaeological Survey of Ireland under SMR No. KK020-017004- The SMR record notes: "In the SW portion of the graveyard (KK020-017002-) enclosing the medieval church of Clara (KK020-017001-), close to the S boundary wall. A portion of the shaft of a font consisting of a large block of polished limestone (H 0.35m, diam. 0.4m) subcircular in plan with semi-circular roll-mollings [sic] at each of its four corners. There has been some damage to these mouldings. A drainage hole (diam. 0.11m) runs through its centre of the shaft. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 18 November 2020." The object is roughly cylindrical with four protruding vertical pipes or mouldings set at 90-degree angles; there is a broad drain hole from top to bottom, suggesting thus that the missing basin had also a centre drain.
A set of digital photographs taken 19 October 2024 by A.-K. D. may be seen in Wikipedia [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Churchclara_font_base] [accessed 22 July 2025].
A 3-D model of this base fragment may be seen in Sketchfab [https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/churchclara-font-base-d78a0d1239be437fb8d0cd54a7d92ce4] [accessed 22 July 2025] captioned: "The base of a baptismal font in the graveyard of Churchclara, a few meters SW of the church ruin. The drainage hole runs all the way through, and the column shaped decoration is somewhat damaged at the bottom which is buried. It is described in Canon Carrigan’s History." [NB: the mentioned source is probably William Carrigan's The History and Antiquities of Ossory (1897-1903)]