Lisadell Church Co Sligo is in the diocese of Elphin. It is one of three churches in the Drumcliffe group of parishes. Considering its rural location it is surprisingly large, not quite as big as Drumcliffe Parish Church and of course not on the tourist trail in the manner of Drumcliffe. It doesn't have the benefit of a W. B. Yeats in its graveyard! Mind you there now seems to be some doubt as to whether it was his remains which were repatriated on board the French navy's Le Macha.
Unfortunately the Church was locked up when I called at it on Monday. The grounds are well kept, the grass cut short and the gravel paths and drives weed free and raked. If one was cynical one might postulate that this is merely a legacy from the visit of Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall in May of this year but I genuinely do not believe that to be the case.
To the east of the church building and surrounded by hedging are the graves of the Gore-Booth family. Despite the family's former position as the major landowners in the area the headstones are surprisingly modest. Its most famous or some might say its most infamous member, Constance, is of course not buried with her forebearers, politics and religion resulting in her being laid to rest in Dublin's Glasnevin cemetery. She had given up the religion of her birth and converted to Catholicism circa 1916.
The church is constructed of limestone and was completed in 1860 in a gothic revival style. The proportions of the three stage bell tower are, I view, highly complimentary to the elevations of the five bay nave. The result is a sympathetically proportioned building.
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