Our main interest at this place was the round tower, but we have been unlucky and the tower was totally wrapped by a scaffolding for major restoration works that began one year ago and will last at least two more years.
We decided to visit the nearby small church that has some interesting features. The friendly site manager gave us some interesting directions about what to see.
The monastery was allegedly founded by Bishop Lughnach, one of the first Christian evangelists in county Kerry.
This church may date from the 15th century and was built using stones and materials from an earlier church. It is aligned to the southeast (115°), and is short and compact. The altar end of the church has a huge vault tomb. The east window is a two-light ogee headed window with a wonderful moulding on the outside and a splay on the inside.
In the south wall there's a window on which sill is an octagonal stone font which has been mostly recontructed during the recent conservation and restoration works carried out at the site.
The font has a diagonal of 49 centimetres, each side measures 19 centimetres in length and the stone is 5 centimetres thick.
The west doorway is arched on the outside and lintelled inside. In the south interior corner of this doorway a stone slab has been set sideways, and it carries an inscription with the date 1666 and the word "DIAIGIN" above it. Other symbols are incised on the surface.
Other vault tombs are in the graveyard around this small church.
When we came here for the first time on May 15th, 2000, to visit the round tower we didn't notice this church.
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