Rearcross is a village in the townland

Townland

A townland or bally is a small geographical division of land used in Ireland. The townland system is of Gaelic origin—most townlands are believed to pre-date the Norman invasion and most have names derived from the Irish language...

 of Reardnogy in North Tipperary

North Tipperary

North Tipperary is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Mid-West Region and is also located in the province of Munster. It is named after the town of Tipperary and consists of 48% of the land area of the traditional county of Tipperary. The county was established in 1898 and has had a county...

, Ireland

Republic of Ireland

Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

. It is located on the R503

R503 road

The R503 road is a regional road in Ireland which runs east-west from Thurles, County Tipperary to the N7 west of Limerick City.As of March 2009 much of the road is in a very poor condition.The entire route is in County Tipperary and is long....

 Thurles

Thurles

Thurles is a town situated in North Tipperary, Ireland. It is a civil parish in the historical barony of Eliogarty and is also an ecclesiastical parish in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly...

 to Limerick

Limerick

Limerick is the third largest city in the Republic of Ireland, and the principal city of County Limerick and Ireland's Mid-West Region. It is the fifth most populous city in all of Ireland. When taking the extra-municipal suburbs into account, Limerick is the third largest conurbation in the...

 Regional Road

Regional road

A regional road in Ireland is a class of road not forming a major route , but nevertheless forming a link in the national route network. There are over 11,600 kilometres of regional roads. Regional roads are numbered with three digit route numbers, prefixed by "R" A regional road in Ireland is a...

, in the Slieve Felim Mountains. It is in the Roman Catholic parish of Kilcommon and Hollyford and Rearcross

Kilcommon and Hollyford and Rearcross

The Parish of Kilcommon and Hollyford and Rearcross is a combined Ecclesiastical parish of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly. It includes the villages of Rearcross and Kilcommon in North Tipperary and the village of Hollyford in South Tipperary, Ireland. The parish is part of the...

, in the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly

The Metropolitan Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly is a Roman Catholic archdiocese in mid-western Ireland. The diocese is in the secular province of Munster. The Diocese of Cashel was established in 1111 by the Synod of Rathbreasail and promoted to the status of a Metropolitan Province in 1152 by the...

, and also in the historical barony of Owney and Arra

Owney and Arra

Owney and Arra is one of the baronies of Ireland, an historical geographical unit of land. Its chief town is Newport...

.

Rearcross Church

The church was designed by a Swiss architect for a Wesleyan congregation. It was a temporary structure situated in Northumbria

Northumbria

Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...

 and used by the mining community there. During the 1880s the community at Rearcross had to walk quite a distance to hear mass in the absence of a local church. At the time, diocesan funds were heavily committed to finishing the cathedral in Thurles

Thurles

Thurles is a town situated in North Tipperary, Ireland. It is a civil parish in the historical barony of Eliogarty and is also an ecclesiastical parish in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly...

 and with resources stretched the bishop dispatched the local priests on fund-raising drives to America. The parish priest in Rearcross, Fr. William J. McKeogh, on one such expedition succeeded in raising the remarkable sum of £4,400 in America while other priests returned with mere hundreds of pounds. Naturally this resulted in the bishop's high opinion being bestowed on Fr. McKeogh who seems to have kept back £400 himself.

In the meantime, Fr. McKeogh somehow heard of the church in Northumbria, where the mining industry was going into decline. In 1887 he arranged to buy the church for £440, had it dismantled, imported to Limerick and transported by the local farmers of Rearcross to its present location. The site was donated by the Hogan family. The steps were built at the expense of the landlord, Lord Barrington, by his workmen from Glenstal Abbey

Glenstal Abbey

Glenstal Abbey is a Benedictine monastery located in Murroe, County Limerick. It is dedicated to Saint Joseph and Saint Columba. The current abbot of the monastery is Dom Patrick Hederman, OSB...

. The church is unique, having corrugated tin walls (the iron having been used during the Second World War) and roof, three falleries, a stained glass rose window in each gable and representations of two saints not usually the objects of Irish devotion - St. Thomas Aquinas and St. William. The names coincide with the first names of the priest donors. The church was renovated at the cost of €90,000 recently. It is lined internally with pine and insulated with jute.

See also

• List of towns and villages in Ireland