The Altar Church

About

The Altar Church, or The Church of The Poor (Irish: Teampol na mBocht), is a small Church of Ireland church in Toormore village in County Cork in Ireland. The church was built in 1847 as a famine relief effort to support the local poor. The initiative was led by the Rev.

William Allen Fisher, a local priest and landowner (who later in 1876 was registered as owning 257 acres of land worth 75 pounds and 10 shillings), and it was him who gave the church the name "The Church of the Poor". The church was known under multiple names, including the Poor Man's Church, Teampol na Muck (Church of the Pigs), Fisher's Church and most recently Altar Church. It was also the only Church of Ireland church with an official Irish name (Teampol na mBocht).

It has never been established if the support from Rev. Fisher was a genuine act of relief to the locals in the times of the Great Hunger, an act of souperism to gain new followers to the Church of Ireland from among the local Catholic community, or a mix of both. Regardless of motives, it is known that all work on the church was done by hand, including carrying of locally quarried stones, to promote the poorest and exclude from the effort the "stronger...