St. Fintan’s Catholic Church

The early nineteenth-century St. Fintan’s Catholic Church is a fine example of a spacious ‘barn-  style’ building. Features of note include the marble altar which was presented to the church by  Cardinal Moran (see page 31).

To the left of the church, in the carpark, can be seen the tiny schoolhouse where John Conwill, a  local teacher, taught John Tyndall, of nearby Leighlinbridge, between 1836 and 1838. Tyndall  was an internationally famous scientist and inventor of the Light Pipe whose work in the 1860s  opened up the debate on the greenhouse effect. Other famous figures taught by Conwill include  Cardinal Patrick Moran and the brothers Patrick and John Foley who became respectively  Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin and President of Carlow College.

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