Kildemock’s Jumping Church ruins date back to the 12th century and sit just outside Ardee in County Louth. In 1715, this peaceful setting became the site of a bewildering, unsolved Irish mystery, earning a spot in the “fertile folklore of Ireland’s smallest county.”
As the story goes, a mason named Myles abandoned his faith and betrayed the church by working on the Protestant church in St. Aban. He fell to his death from a scaffolding.
Other cemeteries refused to bury him because he was regarded as a sinner and non-believer. Against church policy, he was buried at this church.
The day after the mason’s burial, on Candlemas Day 1715, the discussion intensified: Was the violent storm a divine intervention, supernatural vengeance, or simply a freak coincidence?
Scientifically minded witnesses and meteorologists believed that the storm’s force lifted the west wall and pushed it eastward into the church, which ended up excluding the man’s body from the building’s perimeter.
The massive masonry wall is built of rough rubble stone. It stands 19 ft. high, 15 ft. wide, and 3 ft. deep. It could have easily given way under a storm’s force.
Instead, it was detached in a straight line roughly 1.5 ft. above ground. The wall moved and landed at an awkward slant approximately 3 ft. from its foundation.
To date, the wall stands where it landed and both the wall and the foundation are visible, preparing the ground for debate about its unusual fate.
Building on the wall’s enigmatic position, according to some archaeologists weathering and erosion caused it to slide, yet the exact mechanism is a mystery. Others theorize that the wall was not violently displaced, but that the earth itself moved.
Some blame pranksters for the so-called “hoax,” while cynics counter that even with today’s equipment, skilled architects and their trained craftsmen would struggle to execute such a precise function.
In addition, Kildemock was under the control of the Knights Templar until 1540. This historical connection also powers local theories of hidden spiritual energy or “cursed” ground that might have facilitated the wall’s strange movement.It seems that undoubtedly the debates will continue endlessly, even though the truth is buried somewhere in history, “while the locals insist that the supernatural conclusion is truest of them all.”
