Ecclesiastical site

The National Monuments Service's description

In level pasture c. 10m to the W of a stream, church (LF023-097----) and graveyard (LF023-097001-) on the N side of Taghshinny (Teach Sinche / House of Sineach) village was probably built on the site of an early Christian monastery founded by St. Sineach. There are references in the annals to a church here in the 1220s, possibly associated with the monastery on Inchcleraun in Lough Ree (LF021-48----) (ALC, vol. 1; Corlett 1998, 115-18). There is a Saint Sineach of Inis-Clothrann whose feastday was April 20th and who may be the founder of the monastery at Taghshinny. According to Ó Riain (2011, 563) the name Sineach is probably; 'derived from sean, old, this name, also written as Sinche, was popular enough to be included in the list of homonymous saints, which contains twelve (otherwise mainly unattested) representatives of the cult'. Ó Riain (2011, 267) has suggested that this monastery was associated with 'Díona daughter of the king of the Saxons. This person is known only from the tract on the mothers of the saints which attributes to her the motherhood of the sons of Brachan, king of the Britons, and eponym of Brycheiniog in south Wales. She may also have been adopted by the Síol Maine of Longford/Westmeath who numbered among their four cailleacha, 'nuns', a certain Díne daughter of Bracán, the other three being Forbhaise daughter of Aodh. Lasair daughter of Rónán, and Sineach of the Longford church of Taghshinny'.
The 18th-century C. of I. church in the centre of the graveyard may have been built on or close to the site of the medieval church. An early Christian cross-slab (LF023-097003) stands in the E quadrant of the graveyard and fragments of a second early Christian cross-slab (LF023-097004-) were removed in 1999 from the graveyard by the National Museum of Ireland for safe keeping in Kildare Street.

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 22 May 2023

References

Corlett, C. 1998a Miscellanea - Two previously unpublished cross slabs from Taghshinny, County Longford. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 128, 115-18.

ALC - The Annals of Lough Cé: a chronicle of Irish affairs, 1014-1690, ed. W.M. Hennessy (2 vols., London, 1871; reflex facsimile, Irish Manuscripts Commission, Dublin, 1939)

Ó Riain, P. 2011 A dictionary of Irish Saints. Dublin. Four Courts Press.