Hollywood St Kevin

History

St Kevin's Church dates from the late seventeenth century. The earliest surviving reference to a church at Hollywood occurs in a thirteenth-century charter, and it is possible that a small church stood in the village in the early medieval period, perhaps on the site the present building occupies, though no evidence of its location has been found. A charter of 1192 granted lands in the area to the de Marisco family; the name 'Bosco Sancto' recurs in such sources, and a sixteenth-century document uses the form 'Cillín Caoimhín'.

The village lies at the beginning of St Kevin's road, a main route to the King's River valley and Glendalough, and is traditionally the starting point of the Camino de Glendalough, which follows the medieval pilgrimage route of St Kevin's Way. Folklore links St Kevin with Hollywood, holding that he spent time in the area before travelling to Glendalough.

The building

The church is a detached two-bay single-storey gable-ended building of simple rectangular plan, with two lean-to porches added later to the south and west. Few seventeenth-century churches survive, and fewer still retain much of their original structure; on those grounds the parish history describes it as one of the most noteworthy churches in Ireland.

Notable features

Five medieval grave slabs dating from the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries were found in the graveyard, evidence of ecclesiastical activity at the site before the present building.