Aghavallen Church /Graveyard

Aghavallen Church /Graveyard, Ballylongford, Co.Kerry

Aghavallen Church
This was the original parish church of Ballylongford. The present structure dates from the 15th century, and it replaced an earlier one from the 6th century. It was endowed by John O’Connor-Kerry, and according to the Papal Registers of the 14th and 15th centuries, many of its parish priests were drawn from the hereditary clerical family of O’Kennelly. After the Cromwellian conquest was completed in 1653, the church was taken over by the newly arrived Protestant Community. Several landowners such as the Sandes, Ponsonbys (descendants of Cromwellian officers), and the Crosbies, Colts and Popes, have impressive tombstones and mausolea here. It was in this church that Herbert Horatio Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, Britain’s leading military strategist during World War I, was baptized in 1851.

Aghavallen Church / Graveyard covered in Snow 2nd March 2018