Church

The National Monuments Service's description

National Monument No. 10001. Illaunloughan/Oileán Lócháin is a small, low-lying island located in Portmagee Channel, c. 120m from the mainland at S and c. 400m WNW of Portmagee (Port Mhic Aoidh) village. The island stands in the civil parish of Killemlagh (Cill Imleach), in the barony of Iveragh (Uíbh Ráthach). According to Marshall and Walsh (1998, 102) 'There is no historical documentation for the island, and the origin of its name is uncertain. Lochán may be the name of a saint associated with the island, a theory supported by the mention of two Lochans in the Martyrology of Oengus, written c. AD 800 (Stokes 1984, 255, 263) and by the inland location of Killoughane (Cill Lócháin) ecclesiastical site [KE065-058001-] at the eastern end of the Iveragh peninsula (O'Sullivan and Sheehan 1996, 357). Alternatively the island name may be derived from the island of the chaff (OSNB). Four seasons of archaeological work, carried out from 1992 to 1995, have completed the excavation of about 70 per cent of the island.
The foundations of this drystone structure are located close to the E edge of the island and measure 3.4m E-W x 2.1m N-S internally. The walls, constructed of horizontally laid slabs, have rounded external angles and vary from 1m to 1.4m thick. They are preserved to an external height of 0.45m. A 0.9m wide doorway is located at W, and a number of threshold slabs are preserved in situ at its base. There are several upright slabs in the interior of the building, and a row of orthostats stands 1.2m SE of it. Excavation revealed that the oratory overlay a leacht [KE086-036021-] on its N side and was preceded by two sod-built structures, possibly oratories [KE087-036016/018-], at E. A radiocarbon date of 640-790 AD was derived from a context overlying the clay floor of the stone oratory. This church was conserved in 2001-2 (Marshall and Walsh 2005, 213).
This drystone oratory was described by Marshall and Walsh (2005, 42-4) as follows; 'The collapse of stone from the upper walls of the oratory and the sod and grass that covered the fallen stones were substantial enough to raise the ground level around the structure to as much as 0.66m high. When excavated, the walls were found to stand to a maximum height of 1.29m and were clearly corbelled and battered; the thickness of the wall base varied from 1.3m to 1.6m on the northern and southern walls, and the eastern and western walls were somewhat thinner.
The entrance of the Illaunloughan oratory, in common with all Irish church thresholds, was paved with large flagstones; a well-built path of flagstones led away from the oratory but was broken off a few metres from the oratory threshold. The door jambs of the entrance were splayed, varying in width from 0.95m on the outside to 0.62m on the inside, but had no vertical uprights used as facing stones, a feature seen on the large oratory at Skellig Michael. There was no evidence of working or dressing on any of the stones. An unusual feature of the entrance was the step down from the threshold paving into the interior, perhaps a consequence of building on top of the earlier sod oratory; the sill stone of the earlier structure, which remained in place, is at this lower level.
No trace of a window was left at Illaunloughan, but a single window in the eastern facade was common in early medieval stone oratories and churches in Ireland; windows tended to be flat-headed with splayed ingoings and inclined jambs with stepped sills. Only one corbelled oratory [KE042-071004-], Gallarus, on the Dingle Peninsula, has a simple, small, round-headed window.
The exterior masonry of the oratory comprised stones of varying size. The average stone was flat, rarely more than 0.15m high and 0.20-0.30m wide. There was no attempt to create courses, but the stones were well and closely set, with a levelling effect that would have been more noticeable when the oratory was intact, as subsidence and collapse of the upper walls have displaced some stones. Nothing in the masonry fabric indicated more than one period of construction. Island stone was used for the oratory, and evidence of quarrying on the rock ridge behind the domestic huts was clearly visible. Devonian sandstone is easily prised off with iron tools and makes a strong building stone for corbelled structures'.

This monument is subject to a preservation order made under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 (PO no. 1/1998).

See attached plan showing the excavated areas on Illaunloughan, taken from Marshall and Walsh 1998, Fig. 11.2

The above description is derived from O'Sullivan, A. and Sheehan, J. (compilers) 'The Iveragh peninsula: an archaeological survey of South Kerry'. Cork University press. (1996), no. 964. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Revised by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of revised upload: 29 March 2022

References

Marshall, J. W. and Walsh, C. 1998 Illaunloughan, Co. Kerry: an island hermitage. In M. Monk and J. Sheehan (eds), Early medieval Munster: archaeology, history and society, 102-11. Cork University Press.

Marshall, J. W. and Walsh, C. 2005 Illaunloughan Island: an early medieval monastery in County Kerry. Bray. Wordwell.

OSNB - Ordnance Survey Name Books. Pro-forma books arranged by Civil Parish for recording townland and other name-forms and compiled in the course of the OS 6-inch survey 1824-1841. The name books also include minor names and incidental references to antiquities. National Archives of Ireland.

O'Sullivan, A. and Sheehan, J. 1996 The Iveragh peninsula: an archaeological survey of South Kerry. Cork University press.

Stokes, W. 1905 The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee. London.