page_title: Mornington, County Meath
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: Mornington, County Meath / Religion
caption_attribution_description: English: Church at Mornington, Co. Meath Built by Hammond of Drogheda in 1841 for the Rev. Donellan, the Star of the Sea church was closed in 1989 when a new church was built nearby.
context_page_description: Mornington is a coastal village on the estuary of the River Boyne in County Meath, Ireland approximately 5 km downriver from the centre of Drogheda. Together with the neighbouring villages of Laytown and Bettystown it comprises the census town of Laytown-Bettystown-Mornington, with a combined population of 10,889 at the 2011 Census and 11,872 at the 2016 Census. Mornington is part of the wider area collectively known as East Meath.
  The large townland of 1,223 acres is bound on the north by the River Boyne estuary and on the east by the Irish Sea. The townland extends along the seashore to Bettystown village and includes part of that village up to and including The Neptune Hotel. The townland, part of the civil parish of Colpe, touches on other townlands: Betaghstown to the south,
  Colp East and Colp West to the west and Donacarney Great and
  Donacarney Little to the south and west. Stameen lies to the west. Baltray, Beaulieu and Banktown lie across the Boyne.
  Mornington can also refer to a larger area, a half-parish, within the Laytown-Mornington Roman Catholic parish established in 1986, and formerly part of the parish of St. Mary's in Drogheda.
context_section_description: There is one church in Mornington, it is Roman Catholic, and was dedicated 27 August 1989 as the Star of the Sea (Irish: Réalt ná Mara) with work completed in 1991. Since the establishment of the Laytown-Mornington parish in 1986 the curate in Mornington has acted in a supportive capacity to the parish priest in Laytown.
  The present church is designed by Drogheda-based Turlough McKevitt Architects and built by MJ Duffy & Sons Ltd. in the late-1980s. It replaced the old 'Star of the Sea' church in the centre of the original village. 
  The former church of 1841 is gabled-fronted, its main entrance facing the West, with a date plaque set above the door but also with a side entrance which was more commonly used. Inside on both sides of the main entrance, between the inner and outer doors, narrow curved stairs led up to the "Gallery". This was a slanting upper floor covering just over half of the church space. Here the choir sat and latecomers could sneak in after mass had started. A large confessional box was located on the right towards the rear under this floor. The church originally had the traditional ad orientem altar mounted into the East wall and following changes in the liturgy a later versus populum altar as well. A door to the sacristy led off to the right from the altar. Stained glass windows of the patron saints were transferred to the new church.  
  The old church was built in the Gothic Revival style under the supervision of Thomas Hammond of Drogheda in 1839-1841 for the Rev. John Donnellan of St. Mary's Parish on the buff overlooking the bridge at Mornington were a stream enters the Boyne. 
  This original church site was previously the location of a small Penal-era chapel and prior to that a pre-Reformation church listed in the ecclesiastical taxation (1302–06) of Pope Nicholas IV. The latter has a turret at the west end pierced for two bells. It was first recorded as being a ruin in 1622, and part of its remains can still be found in the old graveyard adjoining. The anonymous illustration "Mornington", a vignette on engraved title page of 'Life and campaigns of the Duke of Wellington'. Vol. I shows the old church and chapel before the building of the church of 1841. A chapel at Mornington is mentioned c. 1192-1202 in a Llanthony Charter.
  St. Patrick is said to have landed here, at hostium Colpdi, the port of Colp at the mouth of the Boyne, tied up his boats and continued on his way to Slane along the south bank of the Boyne, though the church, and the former Church of Ireland church at Colp/Colpe, were traditionally dedicated to St. Columba. An undated life of St. Samthann of Cluain Bronaig mentions Colp as a port used by boats from the Columban centre of Iona. This association can still be seen in the name of the local GAA Club, St. Colmcilles.
  The Martyrology of Tallaght, compiled c. 800 A.D., mentions a Saint Aithcáin of Inber Colptha, nar' clói chathgreim ('whom no battle-might vanquished'), whose feast-day was the 16th of June. Any local tradition of him has gone.
  Devotion to another June saint, John the Baptist, 24th June, probably came with the Normans who were particularly attached to his cult. A former holy well dedicated to St. John is located in a marshy and wooded area known as "The Glen" near the new church. It is situated close to the Colpe stream at the base of a hill called Cnoc Bán. Its pattern was observed, until suppressed by a local priest, "up to the turn of the [twentieth] century by people seeking cures for eye and ear ailments. Buttons, pieces of clothing and other personal items were hung on an elder bush overhanging the well. Local tradition claimed that the herbs growing around the well had the virtue of curing coughs, skin infections and deafness". The well has a wall surround built into the side of the hill but is now choked with debris. A stone known as the mass rock stood beside the well. Mass was celebrated in this isolated location during the difficult times when the Penal Laws were in force. Traditionally wells dedicated to the saint in Ireland held a patron/pattern day on St J
caption: Old Star of the Sea church of 1841
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