Street Wise Athlone - Clonmacnoise

Athlone Miscellany with Gearoid O'Brien

This series of articles for the Westmeath Independent was run in conjunction with the Street Wise Athlone series on Athlone Community Radio

“In a quiet water’d land, a land of roses,

Stands Saint Kieran’s City fair;

And the warriors of Erin in their famous generations

Slumber there”

These are the opening lines of a famous poem, the dead of Clonmacnoise by the Offaly poet T.W. Rolleston, which is in itself a version of an Irish poem by Angus O’Gillan.

We are very fortunate here in Athlone to have the vast monastic ruins of Clonmacnoise on our doorstep. The name Clonmacnoise is the Anglicised version of Cluain Mhic Nois, which translates as ‘The meadow of the sons of Nos. I am no expert on Clonmacnoise but I have to admit I love the place and don’t get out there half often enough.

St Ciaran was the founder of the monastery at Clonmacnoise. His father was a craftsman, a chariot builder, from Co Roscommon and Ciaran’s spiritual journey took him first to Clonard where he studied under St Finian. From Clonard he went to the Aran Islands to study under St Enda on Inishmore. He was ordained by St Enda and sent out to establish a monastery in the Midlands. He spent some time with St Senan on Scattery Island before making his way up the Shannon where he established a monastery on Hare Island. Then sometime between 543 and 549 he founded a monastery at Clonmacnoise. He died when he was in his early thirties and is regarded as one of the “twelve Apostles of Ireland”. Like many Irish saints the various ‘lives’ of St Ciaran are more hagiography than biography, abounding as they do with miraculous happenings. The most accepted dates for St Ciaran are 516-549. His time at Clonmacnoise was remarkably short. Some sources say that he only lived for seven months after founding the monastery while other sources say he lived for a year before being struck down by the plague. St Ciaran’s feast day is celebrated on the 9th of September.

Visiting Clonmacnoise Today

We are told that St Ciaran first approached Clonmacnoise by boat – I have made the journey on the Viking Boat, where one gets the benefit of a great commentary and I can recommend it as the best way to appreciate the location chosen by St Ciaran. Could St Ciaran have found a more perfect location? Clonmacnoise lay at the intersection of two major ‘highways’, the Esker Riada which carried the main east-west route across the country and the River Shannon which was an ideal artery of communication. There was a natural ford or crossing-point of the river at Shannonbridge and in early medieval times there was a wooden bridge at Clonmacnoise remains of which were discovered by two local divers, Donal Boland and Mattie Grehan.

Today, there is nothing tangible remaining from St Ciaran’s time, which is hardly surprising as the churches and cells of that period would have been made of wood or mud and wattle. But after Ciaran’s day the monastery at Clonmacnoise went on to become one of the most important centres of learning in Ireland. A rare find, made as recently as 1990 during the digging of a grave in the new cemetery, was an incomplete fragment of an ogham stone which could possibly date to the time of St Ciaran. It has just a partial inscription which reads ‘Nadav…’ However, the dating of such a stone is notoriously tricky and one of the most famous fragments of a grave-slab from Clonmacnoise has a simple cross and the word Colman followed by the Ogham inscription which spells ‘bocht’ – the Inscription can be interpreted as ‘Pray for poor Colman’.

Clonmacnoise is always worth visiting and in the past fifty years the amount of scholarship on the subject means that we now know a great deal more about the great monastic settlement than our scholarly ancestors ever knew. For anyone interested in the environmental heritage of Clonmacnoise a book edited by Mary Tubridy ‘The Heritage of Clonmacnoise’ is essential reading; for the scholar Clonmacnoise Studies Volumes 1 & 2 make for rewarding reading but the OPW guide, simply called ‘Clonmacnoise’ which is written by Con Manning

synthesises much of the modern scholarship on the site. This book is beautifully produced – the design was done by John O’Regan, the Athlone born publisher of Gandon Books. John is a son of the late Tadhg and Frances O’Regan. The greatest recent breakthroughs in the archaeology/history of Clonmacnoise are as a result of excavations mainly conducted by Heather King of the OPW.

The Ruins that are Extant

Today the very impressive ruins to be seen at Clonmacnoise include a cathedral which is over a thousand years old. It might even be the ‘stone church’ which was built by King Flann and Abbot Colman in the year 909. There is a Round Tower which dates to 1124 according to the ‘Annals of the Four Masters’ the two round towers are the free-standing O’Rourke’s Tower and McCarthy’s tower which is attached to St. Finghin’s Church. Other interesting ruins include Temple Kelly, Temple Ciaran and Temple Melaghlin (or Temple Ri) which dates to the early thirteenth century. Later remains include Temple Dowling, Temple Hurpan and Temple Connor.

The High Crosses at Clonmacnoise are some of the finest in the country, these include the famous Cross of the Scriptures, the South Cross and the North Cross. Older folk will remember the gallery of Early Christian Grave-Slabs which have had to be moved to safety following the theft of slabs in the past.

The interpretative centre has an excellent audio-visual presentation which explains much of the site and the guided-tours do the rest.

The Nun’s Chapel

If you go to Clonmacnoise be sure to go to see the Nun’s Chapel, here you will find a beautiful Romanesque Church, which is reputed to have been built by Dearbhforgaill (Dervogilla) the wife of Tighernain O’Rourke who was abducted by Dermot MacMurrough in 1152. This chapel was restored by the Kilkenny Archaeological Society in the late 19th century. It features a fine Romanesque doorway and chancel arch. I never consider a visit to Clonmacnoise complete if I haven’t visited the Nun’s Chapel which lies beyond the new graveyard.

Clonmacnoise Castle

On the approach to Clonmacnoise one cannot but notice Clonmacnoise Castle which looks precarious to say the least. This castle is roughly contemporaneous with Athlone Castle. Athlone Castle was first built in 1210, whereas Clonmacnoise Castle was first built in 1214. This stone castle was built not long after that, probably to replace a wooden castle. Some sources say that it was blown up in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries but there is no historical evidence to back up this claim. Conleth Manning is of the opinion that the south-west corner of the keep might have been undermined as early as 1300during the Gaelic resurgence. Given its very rural setting it is marvellous to see that the extensive earth-works surrounding the castle are intact.

Clonfinough Stone

Another remarkable monument, not far from Clonmacnoise, is the mysterious Clonfinlough Stone, which is in a field close to Clonfinlough church which is about three miles from Clonmacnoise. This erratic limestone boulder is decorated with ‘Rock Art’ which is said to be 4,500 years old. One of the more recent explorations of the stone was written by Elizabeth Shee Twohig in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland in 2002, but it seems that this stone will continue to intrigue historians and archaeologists for the next 4,500 years too.

Next article: Glassan

Previous articles in the series can be viewed here