Church

The National Monuments Service's description

National Monument No. 81. Small Early Christian oratory (ext. dims. 5m E-W; 4m N-S; wall T 0.6m) with projecting antae built with roughly coursed sandstone rubble with rebuilt S half of W doorway and W half of S wall (Anon 1907, 335). The S wall of the church is tilting at an angle probably the result of burials undermining the foundations of the church. According to O' Donovan the church contained St. Kieran's hand while one local man remembered when the church was roofed by oak timbers. Two croziers were found inside the church in 1821 (Anon 1907, 335). (O' Donovan 1856-7, 447; Macalister 1910, 23; O'Flanagan 1933, vol. 1, 63-6; Molloy 1950, 6; Harbison 1972, 204; Langan Vol. 1, 76, Manning 1994, 26)
Excavation by Donald Murphy of Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd. under licence No. E3761 took place of the site of a proposed grave to be located within the ecclesiastical site of Clonmacnoise, Co. Offaly. The site is located immediately adjacent to St Ciaran’s Church within the main complex of ecclesiastical buildings associated with the monastic site of St Ciaran.
An area of 3m by 2.4m was excavated to an average depth of between 0.81m and 1.19m. At this depth three modern intact burials in coffins were recorded and dated to between 1928 and the 1940s. These were left unexcavated. The interment of these three modern burials truncated five earlier burials recorded at the same level within the same archaeological context. One of the five disturbed burials (Burial 4) was radiocarbon dated, and provided a date range of between 1670 and 1950, calibrated at 2 sigma, giving a 95% probability rate of this burial dating from between these two dates. However, the five disturbed burials were located within the same archaeological context as the coffin furniture, which suggests a date in the later part of this range, possibly between 1810 and 1950. In order to stratigraphically link the archaeological deposits identified within the excavation to the foundations of St Ciaran’s Church the trench was extended at the south-east corner, during the excavation of which a further burial was identified (Burial 9). This burial was located within a bowl-shaped cut in the natural sand and gravel below the foundations of St Ciaran’s Church. The appearance of this burial suggested that it had been redeposited here, just prior to or during the building of St Ciaran’s Church. This burial was radiocarbon dated and provided a date range of between ad 710 and 890 and ties in with a radiocarbon date previously obtained from mortar from the wall of St Ciaran’s Church (ad 660–980).
During the excavation a fragment of a decorated cross-slab was recovered from the topsoil.
The site of the proposed grave is devoid of any archaeological features and deposits due to the high level of ground disturbance present within this area of the old graveyard associated with a density of relatively modern burials and groundworks carried out around St Ciaran’s Church in the 1950s (Bennett 2011, 298-9).

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Offaly' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Compiled by Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload/revision: 11 November 2011