Church of Our Lady and St Joseph, Prosperous

The Church of Our Lady and Saint Joseph is a 19th-century Catholic church in Prosperous, County Kildare, Ireland.^[1][2]

Location

Prosperous Church is located in the east of Prosperous village, on the crossroads on the R403 road to Clane.^[3]

History

The first church in the Prosperous area was at Downings North. A crozier was deposited or hidden in a bog near Prosperous c. AD 1000 and was found by turf-cutters around 1831; it is now in the National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology. There is a ruined church at Killybegs, associated with the Knights Hospitaller — the current Church of Our Lady and Saint Joseph contains a baptismal font from the Killybegs church. In the Penal era, there was a Mass-house in the townland of Goatstown. When the modern village was erected by Robert Brooke in the late 18th/early 19th centuries, a Catholic chapel was located at the site of the Prosperous Dramatic Society. Ballynafagh Church, 3 km to the north, was the Church of Ireland site of worship until 1959.^[4]

The Church of Our Lady and Saint Joseph was built in 1866–69 in a Gothic Revival style and dedicated to Mary and Joseph.^[5] It has a four-bay double-height nave with four-bay single-storey lean-to side aisles to the north-west and to south-east, and a single-bay double-height lower chancel to the north-east.^[6][7]

The bell was added in 1927. The church building was extended in 1985, adding a sacristy.^[6]