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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Architectural fragment

Inchcleraun, County Longford, Ireland

The record

Townland
Inchcleraun
County
Longford
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Not indicated
Latest-edition OS map
Not indicated
Coordinates
53.58167, -8.00640
SMR number
LF021-048022-

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

Shown on 4 historical map sheets, the earliest the 1790 "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

The monastic cashel (LF021-048----) now has a gateway of modern appearance on the SE side, where there are the remains of two reused Romanesque jamb-stones decorated with beading and a single lateral chevron, one unfinished cross-base (LF021-048020-), a multiple bullaun stone (LF021-048021-) and traces of a possible cobbled road leading southwards to the church (LF021-048007-) known locally as ‘The Women's Church'. These jamb-stones were first discovered in 1932-3 during OPW maintenance works (101st Rep. public works, Ire. 1932-3, 43). It was suggested that the jamb-stones marked a 12th-century gateway through the cashel into the monastery (Leask 1955, vol. 1, 13, 162; O'Keeffe 2003, 318; Halpin and Newman 2006, 171). However the stones are not in situ and were probably taken from a Romanesque church doorway and re-inserted into the cashel wall (Ní Ghrádaigh 2006, 28; Stalley 2008, 717).
Carved Stone Inventory ID No. 2952 represents a Romanesque sandstone jamb (H 0.35m x Wth 0.36m x D 0.22m) carved on face and reveal with two bands of lateral centrifugal chevron.
Carved Stone Inventory ID No. 2954 represents a Romanesque sandstone jamb (H 0.33m x Wth 0.34m x D 0.27m) carved on the arris with a roll flanked by pellets.

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 17 February 2023

Halpin, A. and Newman, C. 2006 Ireland: an Oxford archaeological guide to sites from the earliest times to AD 1600. Oxford University Press.

Leask, H.G. 1955 (Reprint 1977 and 1987) Irish churches and monastic buildings, vol. I. The first phases of the Romanesque. Dundalk. Dundalgan Press.

Ní Ghrádaigh, J. 2006 Scattery Island's forgotten Romanesque. Archaeology Ireland 20, (4), 26-30.

O'Keeffe, T. 2003 Romanesque Ireland. Architecture and ideology in the twelfth century. Dublin. Four Courts Press.

Stalley, R. 2008 Ecclesiastical architecture before 1169. In D. Ó Cróinín (ed.), A new history of Ireland: prehistoric and early Ireland, 714–743. Oxford University Press.

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
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