In the town of Kilmaine, along the N84, are the ruins of 16th century church. It is said that during his travels through Ireland, St. Patrick stopped in this area and built three different churches, the one in Kilmaine, one at Kill and one at Kilquire.
The church in Kilmaine is a long building aligned to the east (100°), with the all walls but the south one missing. The south transept is still in rather good conditions. On the south wall of this transept there's a window with a nice tracery.
The east window of the transept has a double trefoil window within a splayed arched niche. Low in the southeast corner of this part of the building is a small recess that could have been the piscina. Two pointed arch doorways are in the south wall of the church, the one towards the east end of the wall is wide and leads to the transept, the other one is much narrower and was the main doorway.
The ground around the ruins has many burials, some of them are very old.
|