placenamesInch
An Inis
Inch’s church brings medieval continuity, nineteenth-century rebuilding and individual lives into one Wexford setting.
The name
These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.
An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.
Recorded forms
- An Inis · Irish · main form · validated name
- Inch · English · main form
Place & story
On the mail road
Samuel Lewis placed Inch on the Dublin–Wexford mail road in 1837. His account describes a parish extending across the Wexford–Wicklow boundary, with land divided between tillage and pasture and butter sold into the Dublin market. He also recorded a skirmish near the church during the retreat of James II’s supporters after the Battle of the Boyne. The older church still housed the parish school in Lewis’s day, while a purpose-built schoolhouse was being planned on the glebe. [2]
A new church on an older site
Inch Church was built in 1831 with assistance from the Board of First Fruits. The architectural inventory places it on the site of a church recorded in 1179, later described as ruinous in 1630. The present building’s slender lancet windows, square tower and pinnacles give it an Early English Gothic character. Granite dressings sharpen the windows and doors against the rendered walls, while a three-part east window marks the chancel. [3]
Names and glass inside
The interior records lives linked with the parish. A memorial commemorates Corporal George Herbert Moore, who died at Ladysmith in South Africa in 1900. Another remembers the Reverend Charles Kingsley, who ministered here for nineteen years before his death in 1907. The Brooke memorial window was supplied by Lancaster glassmakers Shrigley and Hunt in 1919. Later furnishings include a Gothic-style reredos dated 1949, making the church’s interior a succession of additions rather than a single untouched nineteenth-century scheme. [3]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Inch. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Inch in Gorey: Samuel Lewis’s 1837 description · Samuel Lewis, reproduced by University of Portsmouth
- Inch Church, record 15700324 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Inch Church of Ireland, County Wexford illustration: based on a Church in Ireland, Inch, Co. Wexford by Jonathan Billinger. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0; adapted illustration distributed under the same licence.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.