St. Mary Church in Athlone

The present church, built in 1827, is on the site of an earlier church built by Lord Grandison, President of Connacht, in 1622. All that survives of this earlier church is the bell-tower. It was from this tower that the bell was sounded by General de Ginkel to give signal for the final assault on Athlone during the siege of 1691. St. Mary’s has two bells, one is dated 1683 and the other is from the old Tholsel or Market House which stood in Custume Place and was demolished in the 1830s.

The present church was designed by a Mr. Richards and the cost of construction was 2,300 pounds which was part funded by the Board of First Fruits. The later chancel of 1869 was designed by J. Rawson Carroll (1830-1911), architect, among whose designs was the village of Ardagh, Co. Longford.

In the church porch, set into the wall, is the ‘mearing stone’ which stood in the middle of the Elizabethan bridge, constructed in 1567 and marked the boundary between Westmeath and Roscommon. Inside the church are some fine memorial tablets, some of them preserved from an earlier church. The oldest memorial commemorates Sir Mathew de Renzi who died in 1634. It is said that Colonel Richard Grace, Governor of Athlone is interred in St. Mary’s. He was a hero of the first siege of 1690 and a casualty of the siege of 1691.

Source: Tourist information board at the site.