Second visit to this amazing site. This place had been living in my mind for many years, and this time we were able to visit it again, and on a wonderful bright day.
This church dates from the 12th century and stands on the site of an earlier monastery founded by St. Finian of Clonard in the 6th century.
The church that we see is a rectangular building, 19.65 metres long, 9.10 metres wide, with walls 90 centimetres thick, mostly standing, apart from a segment of the south wall missing.
There are two small round-headed windows in the east wall, both with a moulding around made with square stone blocks. The window to the north is visibly smaller that the other one. A similar window is in the north wall. These three windows are widely splayed in the inside of the church.
The doorway in the west wall is lintelled on the outside and round-headed on the inside. The outside is decorated with a moulding. The doorway is 1.90 metres high and 84 centimetres wide, and leads to a small and closed environment.
The rest of the church is open to the south and there are a square stone basin next to the east wall, and a fragment of a millstone between two grave slabs in the chancel.
The building is aligned to the east-northeast (75°).
To the northwest of the church is a undecorated granite cross sitting on a pyramidal base 46 centimetres high, 1.27 metres wide and 1 metre deep.
The cross is 2.81 metres tall, 1.58 metres wide at the arms, 52 centimetres wide at the shaft and 31 centimetres thick. A solid wheel is at the cross of the arms. It is aligned northeast-southwest (60°-240°). On the northeast side of the cross is a rectangular trough.
In the graveyard there are a few interesting ancient grave slabs, along with two very ancient cross slabs. Unfortunately one of the two is now half buried in a layer of concrete next to modern family burial!
We came here for the first time on May 20th, 2002.
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