Church

The National Monuments Service's description

On a small platform near the foot of a SE-facing slope, in pasture. Drawn as an E-W orientated rectangular building on the first edition (1842) of the OS 6-inch map. Drawn similarly on the OS 25-inch plan (1897) but with a broken outline (L c. 9n E-W; c. 5m N-S) and with the label ‘Cowlnabrawher (Cill-mic-an-Donain) (Site of)’. Given the same label on the Cassini edition (1920) of the OS 6-inch map, but indicated only by a cross. Labelled ‘site of Cill Mhic an Domhain’ on Robinson’s map of the Burren (1977). George Macnamara (1897, 77) traced the first reference to this church to c. 1350, where Cill-mic-Ui-Donain (the Ascetic’s Church) is mentioned as a place past which Dermot O’Brien and Maccon Macnamara and their army marched in 1317. In 1896, Macnamara was informed about the church’s location, then known as Coulnamraher - i.e., Cabhal na mBrathar, ‘the ruined house of the Friars’ -  (ibid., 78). According to his sources, the church walls had stood to about five feet high [c. 1.5m] 40 or 50 years before, when they were removed to build boundary walls. No visible surface trace of this church survives. A D-shaped platform (37m NW-SE; 15m NE-SW) on which the church stood is defined by a moderate slope (max. H 3m; Wth 10m) from W-N-E, and by a more graduated ‘natural’ hillslope eslewhere. People who had seen the church remains described the structure to Macnamara (ibid.) as measuring about twenty by fifteen feet [c. 6m by c. 4.5m] and orientated ESE-WNW (ibid.). Macnamara (ibid., 78-9) gave details about many architectural fragments in the walls of the field around the church site (see also Westropp 1900-1902, 140; Swinfen 1992, 10-11). One of these architectural fragments (CL017-018003-) was subsequently moved to the front garden of a house c. 480m to the S (CL017-288----). Another architectural fragment from the church which was mentioned by Macnamara (1897, 78) is a bullaun stone (CL017-018002-) situated in a field wall to the W (Swinfen 1992, 11). The other architectural fragments detailed by Macnamara (1897, 78-9) were not found during an inspection in 1998. Situated c. 225m to the NE of the church site is a medieval house (CL017-021----), known locally as Tigh na mBráthar (Robinson 1977) due to a tradition that this ‘House of the Friars’ was the home of ‘the priests who officiated in Cill-mic-Ui-Donain’ (Macnamara 1897, 79).

 

Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy and Conn Herriott

 

Date of upload: 23-10-2025

References

Robinson, T. 1977 (reprint 1999) The Burren: a two-inch map of the uplands of North-West Clare. Map Scale 1:31680. Roundstone: Folding Landscapes. Swinfen, A. 1992 Forgotten stones: Ancient church sites of the Burren and environs. Dublin. Lilliput Press.

Westropp, T.J. 1900-02 The churches of Co. Clare and the origin of the ecclesiastical divisions in that county. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Series 3, vol. 6, 100-180.

Large, S. 2011 A church and graveyard survey in County Clare. Database and photographic record. Clare County Council. Clare Heritage Forum. The Heritage Council.

Macnamara, G.U. 1897 Identification of "The Ascetic's Church," Leana, Co. Clare. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 7, 77-79.