Ratass Church: A Medieval Romanesque Church in Ireland
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Ireland
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Irish
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page6 sections
History
Ratass Church is a ruined medieval, pre-Reformation Catholic church in Tralee, Ireland, built in the Romanesque style during the tenth century. It stands on a site believed to have first contained a ringfort, a roughly circular fortified enclosure formed by an earth bank and external ditch or banks. The place-name is connected with Rath Mhaighe Teas, meaning “fort of the southern plain.”
Early church and episcopal seat
A sandstone church was erected at Ratass during the tenth century. From 1111 to 1117, the site served as the episcopal seat of a diocese in Kerry. An episcopal seat was the principal church or residence connected with a bishop’s administrative jurisdiction. After 1117, the seat was transferred to Ardfert.
The ogham inscription
An ogham stone from an earlier period was found during a cleanup in 1975. Ogham was an early medieval writing system whose characters were arranged along or across a stone edge. The inscription’s Primitive Irish grammar, representing the early form of the Irish language used in the oldest ogham texts, places it at approximately AD 550–600. Ratass Church is associated with the Diocese of Ardfert and Aghadoe and is designated a National Monument of Ireland as “Ratass Church & Ogham Stone.”
Remains
Ratass Church is a ruined Romanesque building beside an adjacent graveyard on Quill Street in the eastern suburbs of Tralee. It measures approximately 16 metres in length and 7.5 metres in width. The surviving structure uses sandstone, limestone, and mortar, with substantial masonry characteristic of Romanesque architecture.
Church structure
The west gable and parts of the nave walls belong to the earlier tenth-century church. The remaining sections were constructed later, preserving evidence of more than one building phase within the ruined structure.
Ogham stone
The associated ogham stone is a fine purple sandstone block measuring 145 by 34 by 20 centimetres. Its inscription reads “[A]NM SILLANN MAQ VATTILLOGG,” translated as “name of Sílán son of Fáithloga.” The stone was found almost flush with the walls of a nineteenth-century burial vault built beside it.
