Ecclesiastical enclosure

The National Monuments Service's description

The monastic site of Cill Mhic Naomháin (Kilmacnevan) was placed on the Register of Historic Monuments in 1989. Extract from Iris Oifigiúil 25th April 1989. Situated on in fairly well drained grass-land with good views of the surrounding countryside. A semi-circular shaped area (approx. diam 20m N-S) enclosed by a low very poorly preserved earthen bank from S-W-N, at the centre of a large sub-circular earthen banked (Wth 3m) area (approx. diam. 75m N-S; 80m E-W) which incorporates Kilmacnevan Church (WM011-115---), graveyard (WM011-115001-) and high cross (WM011-0115003-) in its SE quadrant. In the SW quadrant of the interior is a complex of low banks and a possible rectangular house site (WM011-115004-). Other banks run outside the enclosure on from S-W-NE. This enclosure appears to be part of a larger series of earthworks extending approximately 8 hectares which are visible on Digital Globe aerial photograph taken November 2011. Ecclesiastical enclosure listed by Swan (1988, 13) who recorded that there was evidence of a possible enclosure in the quadrantal form of the boundary wall of the graveyard (WM011-115001-). The Schools' Collection of 1937-9 recorded the following folklore regarding these earthworks which stated that 'there was a town where the graveyard lies now. There was a monastery in the town and in one corner of the graveyard there are the ruins of the monastery' (The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0740, 281). The folklore also recorded the presence of a 17th century mass burial pit in the field beside the graveyard that was marked by a 'big bush' the location of which has not been identified. According to local tradition the 'custom was that every funeral going into the graveyard had to go round the bush three times and the priest say the Deprofundis' (The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0740, 281). The custom was stopped by the local priest c. 1918.

See attached plan of monument surveyed and drawn by the ASI.

Compiled and revised by: Frank Coyne and Caimin O'Brien

Date of revised upload: 24 August 2015

References

Swan, D. L. 1988 Early Christian ecclesiastical sites. In J. Bradley (ed.), Settlement and society in medieval Ireland: studies presented to F.X. Martin OSA, 1-31. Kilkenny. Boethius Press.