Within the vicinity of Laragh village is St. John’s Anglican Church, a little Church of Ireland church, dedicated to St. John, which is completely hidden from view by the woodland in which it is situated.
At the sharp left turn off the road from Laragh to Annamoe very shortly after Laragh, that is called the Oldbridge Road and goes pretty well to Lough Dan from Laragh, there is the notice board telling of its existence, and about fifty metres up that road on the left is the gate to the church. There is a finger-post at the junction too, so you can’t possibly miss it! We in the parish would encourage all who are in the district on a Sunday morning and who are at all church-minded to turn up to join us at 9.15, a good time to prepare for a days walk in the hills.
Glendalough and Laragh are in the ancient parish of Derralossary which is on record from at least the thirteenth century. The present church on that foundation had to be closed by the Church of Ireland in the late 1960s because of population change, and can be seen as a roofless ruin high up to the left some couple of kilometres to the South of Roundwood on the road to Glendalough. It has a fame today because its graveyard contains the remains of Erskine Childers, who was President of Ireland and died in office.