Fahan Presbyterian Church

History

The congregation was originally connected with Burt and Inch, as recorded at a meeting of Laggan Presbytery on 17 June 1691. That arrangement continued until 1719, when Mr Cochrane was ordained at Fawn. A Presbyterian meeting house at Cashel is first mentioned in 1719, and the congregation's own history records that the church has remained on its original site for some three hundred years. The tercentenary was marked by celebrations that closed in late December 2019.

The building

The older seventeenth century wall on the left, with two square windows, contrasts with the wall of the later enlargement on the right, which has four windows with rounded heads.

The church was refurbished in 2003 and 2004, the work carried out by FAS, Ireland's national training and employment authority, to counteract woodworm, rising and penetrating damp and rot. The floor, pulpit and heating system were replaced, the pews were stripped, and a raised dais and an electro osmosis damp proof course were installed. The church hall was opened in 1991.

Notable features

The church has no graveyard of its own. A number of former members are buried in the graveyard at the nearby St Mura's Church of Ireland, where the headstone inscriptions have been listed and the old graveyard at Fahan has been the subject of an archaeological report.