Church

The National Monuments Service's description

On the SE shoreline of Inishglora, associated with an early medieval monastery traditionally said to have been founded in the 6th century by St Brendan the Navigator. Two other churches, St Brendan’s Chapel (MA016-003006-) and Templenafear or the Men's church (MA016-003008-) are located c. 25m to NE, and there is a holy well (MA016-003010-) 10m to W.
This church, traditionally known as the Women's Church, is shown on the 1838 and 1921 OS 6-inch maps where it is named ‘Templenaman Nunnery’. It is a National Monument in state ownership (no. 99).
The church has been a victim of erosion by storm and wave; there are now no upstanding remains. When John O’Donovan visited the island in 1838 the church was still standing. He noted that it was ‘somewhat larger than Teampull na bfear [Men’s church, MA016-003008-]’, and recorded the measurements of a doorway (H 1.6m; Wth 0.8m) but no other details, except to conclude that the church had ‘none of the characteristic of the primitive Irish churches but it is several centuries old. Tradition says it was a Nunnery, whence its name’ (O’Flanagan 1927, 106-107 (204)). Westropp (1904) recorded its dimensions as 24 feet by 12 feet [c. 7.3m N−S by c. 3.6m E−W] with walls 3 feet thick [c. 0.9m].
We have one other valuable record of the church, a photograph taken in 1894 by Jane Shackleton (Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland). This black and white image shows the partly ruined W gable and the N side wall. The roughly coursed walls are constructed of large horizontally laid blocks and slabs intermixed with smaller slabs and stones. A large rectangular recess or wall cupboard is evident in the gable wall. The sides of the recess are each constructed of a single upright slab and it is roofed by a single horizontal slab. The N wall of the church has a large rectangular opening roofed with a thin flat slab or lintel, most likely the doorway noted over fifty earlier by O’Donovan. The S and E walls appear to have already collapsed by this date.
A low right-angled setting (3-4m E−W; 4m N−S) of large rectangular stone blocks is visible here, barely protruding through sod and a dense scatter of storm-tossed rubble at the margins of the storm beach, which slopes S for c. 3m to the water’s edge. This may represent wall footings of the NE corner of the church.

Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy

Date of upload: 13 June 2017

References

Westropp, T.J. 1904 The coasts and islands of the county Mayo. In R. Cochrane (ed.), Programme of excursion and illustrated descriptive guide to the places to be visited in the northern, western and southern islands, and coast of Ireland. June 21st to 29th, 1904 (Dublin), 21-46.

O'Flanagan, Rev. M. (Compiler) 1927 Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Mayo collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1838. Bray.