The earliest recorded church in the village was in 1155. Evidence from the Archaeological Survey carried out by the Office of Public Works in 1995 suggests that this area has been visited, if not inhabited, since as early as the Bronze Age. An urn-burial found on the lands of Moyne Estate dates roughly to the same period as those found at lronmills and Ballymartin (900–1400BC). Fulachta Fiadh (early cooking sites) have been identified at Aharney and near Ballacolla. The ring forts and other enclosures that dot the landscape point to a more permanent, if dispersed, settlement of the land by the Celts (500BC–500AD). At some point in pre-history, the land was part of the kingdom of Ossory, and remained so as part of Upper Ossory into the seventeenth century.