Church

The National Monuments Service's description

Identified as Port Airchinneach (Connellan 1954), it is listed as part of the boundary of Hy Many (O'Donovan 1843, 5) and was plundered by Mac William Burke in 1260 (ALC 1, 435). Situated on a hill overlooking Portrunny Bay (dims c. 1km NW-SE; c. 400-600m N-W), an inlet of Lough Ree, c. 170m to the E. The church is a rectangular structure (int. dims 13.2m E-W; 6.25m N-S), of which only the N wall with an aumbry towards its E end, and the S wall survive. The S wall has two lancet windows in round-headed embrasures towards the E end, only one of which is complete, and a destroyed and blocked doorway towards its W end. The W end of the N wall is truncated by the remaining fragment of the N wall of a house (RO042-044003-) (int. dim. at least 7.55m E-W) which had been vaulted over the ground floor. The church is within a small graveyard (RO042-044002-) (dims 33m E-W; 24m N-S) defined by masonry walls, but archaeological testing (97E0187) 50-150m to the W (Murphy 1998) revealed no archaeological features. Further archaeological testing 09E0499) further E had a similar result (Byrne 2012b). St Diarmaid's Well (RO041-168001-) is c. 110m to the E.

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 19 June 2012

References

Byrne, M.E. 2012b Portrunny and Cooltona: no archaeological significance. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 2009: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 185, No. 711. Dublin. Wordwell.

Connellan, M.J. 1954 Port Airchinnigh - Airchinneach - Portrunny. Irish Book Lover 1, 55-6.

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)

Murphy, Deirdre. 1998 Cooltona, medieval church site. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 1997: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 151, No. 453. Bray. Wordwell.

O'Donovan, J. (ed. and trans.) 1843 The tribes and customs of Hy-Many, commonly called O'Kelly's country, now first published from the Book of Lecan, a manuscript in the library of the Royal Irish Academy. Dublin.