Church of the Assumption, Beauparc

History

The parish of Beauparc lies on the south side of the river Boyne between Navan and Slane. It is a union of the medieval parishes of Ardmulchan, Painestown, Danestown, Kentstown, Brownstown, Ballymagarvey and Tymoole, whose history the parish traces to Norman times. The parish records that it has been dedicated to the Blessed Virgin from the earliest times.

The parish was administered from Ardmulchan in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Mass continued to be celebrated there until 1613, when an inquisition held at Duleek suppressed the chantry, confiscated its endowments and removed the curate from office. By the middle of that century a community of Franciscans had settled at Ardmulchan, and in 1677 the Porter family presented them with a chalice, which remained in the parish until the 1950s. Ardmulchan and Painestown were united in 1672, and as priests departed the parishes were grouped together until they formed the present union.

Dean Cogan, who treats the parish under the name Ardmulchan in his history of the diocese, described the old church there as consisting of a lofty square bell tower and the shell of the old chapel, on an elevated bank above the Boyne. In 1990 the remains of a pre-Norman Christian site were found in the townland of Hayestown, near a holy well called Bride's Well.