Killala was the last of the five Mayo round towers for me. I visited it in September, so it was nice to finally cross it off the list and mark Mayo as done.
This one is impossible to miss. It towers (ha!) over the town and is in wonderful condition. Unlike all too many of these towers, it is complete and still has its cap.
The tower, as seen from the side street
The frustrating thing is the location. It’s just off a side street and at the top of some stone steps. It’s jammed into a small yard with very little room around it, which just feels like a waste of a really good tower. You can get a good look at it up close and personal, but there’s no room to stand back and enjoy it properly.
What the tower looks like when you climb the steps
Some repairs were carried out in the 19th century, including the restoration of the cap (roof). The caps fell in on most of these towers but were later reinstated. At least they did a good job here, unlike the one in Swords, where the restored cap looks like the round tower equivalent of the infamous Spanish fresco restoration fail.
The doorway of the tower
The ruins of Rosserk Abbey are 8km down the road. There is a small carving of a round tower on a piscina (stone basin) there, and it’s thought to depict this tower.
Getting There
Drive into Killala and look up. It’s hard to miss! Big tower, hill...you get the idea. There is a car park beside the nearby Church of Ireland cathedral. On the off-chance you can’t find the tower, they’ve signposted it
The Mayo round towers have been remarkably easy to find so far. More importantly, they haven’t involved too much driving on narrow country roads. Even as a seasoned driver who’s used to those roads, there are times when I question my decisions and pray that there’s nobody coming in the opposite direction.
The village was on my route home, and for a change I didn’t need help from certain navigation apps from evil tech giants. Despite the tower being only about 10m tall nowadays, I spotted it from a distance and pulled the car up in the square beside it. The monastery at Balla was founded by St Mochua, who died in 637. The church was burnt in 780 and again in 1179. The round tower is all that survives from the monastery.
Approaching from the square
The tower stands in a beautifully maintained old graveyard in the centre of the village. It is believed to have been about 15m tall as recently as the 19th century, and we know that a bell was installed here during the 1830s. It must have been considerably taller originally, but exactly how tall it was is another question. With the passage of time, who knows? Like the tower at Aughagower, just 30 km away, this one has two doorways.
Brian Lalor’s excellent book on Ireland’s round towers has been an invaluable companion on these trips and on this blog. He rather tantalisingly describes Balla as a “rogue tower”, which immediately made my ears prick up. Well, as much as a human’s ears can without looking ridiculous.
Part of the answer seems to lie with the original upper doorway. Lalor points out that it is lintelled, something more commonly found in some of the earlier round towers. But in Balla’s case, the doorway appears to have been altered while the tower was being built, rather than being part of the original design.
The masonry also suggests that the tower was built in several phases. So even before it was finished, it seems to have been going off-script.
The original doorway
The second doorway is unusual too. In most round towers, the later ground-level doorway tends to be the crude one, while the original elevated entrance is the more carefully finished of the two. At Balla, it’s the other way around. The ground-level doorway is thought to date from the 16th century, and it’s a very nice piece of work. Part of it also appears to incorporate a piece of an early mediaeval cross slab that has been reused in the construction. Carrying on with the recycling theme, there are a couple of stones in the walls that look very much like bullauns. The tower also has what appears to be a very small window, or a gun loop, in the south-facing wall. Hmm.
Balla round tower lower doorway
For a truncated tower with no crumbly old companions left in the vicinity, it has a lot going on. Even if you’re not a round-tower fanatic – like most regular people 😁 – it’s worth a quick detour if you’re on the road.
Getting There
The village of Balla is on the N60, roughly half way between Castlebar and Claremorris. It’s just off the village square, so it’s a piece of cake to get to.
If you read my post about my visit to Turlough round tower, you might remember me banging on about arriving so late in the evening that everything else had already closed. As a reminder of just how insanely long summer evenings are in Ireland, I managed to find time to visit the round tower at Meelick on that very same evening.
Meelick Round Tower
Meelick’s tower stands in a lovely, peaceful old graveyard on a hill out in the countryside. The modern cemetery is across the road, both sitting quietly alongside a country road with little to disturb the peace.
A word of praise is also due to whoever looks after the graveyard. The ground around the tower is far from even, but the grass has been cut beautifully. Whoever is responsible for keeping this place mown is a lawn-mowing hero!
As with Turlough, very little is known about the monastery that once stood here. We don’t know who founded it or when exactly it was established. In fact, the round tower is now all that remains of the monastic site.
And it is an impressive survivor. Although Meelick’s tower has lost its cap, it still cuts a fine dash, rising about 21 metres above the surrounding countryside. From its position on the hill, it has a commanding view over the fields and landscape around it.
There is an interesting little detail on the eastern side of the tower. Attached to the wall is an old cross slab, thought to bear the inscription “Or do Gricour”, interpreted as meaning “A prayer for Gricour”. It is a small surviving fragment of the community that once existed here, and perhaps the closest thing we have to a name from Meelick’s early history.
The rather old grave slab
There isn’t a huge amount left to see at Meelick, but that is part of what makes the place appealing. There is no ruined church crowding the round tower, like in Turlough, or anything else other than graves and the lovely countryside.
Doorway of Meelick Round Tower
By the time I was taking my photographs, the light was finally beginning to fade. This caused my phone to overcook the photos and made them look like those HDR pics which were all the rage years ago. You know the ones. I’ve tried to calm the photos down afterwards, but there’s only so much you can do. Perhaps it’s an excuse to call back next time I’m in Mayo.
Getting There
The round tower is on a quiet country road and is easy to find. There’s plenty of parking, helped by the presence of the modern-day cemetery across the road.
One of the nice things about going round tower hunting on a long summer’s evening is that there is time to pack lots of sightseeing in. The downside, of course, is that there is also plenty of time to spot places that look interesting but have been closed for hours.
The tower, as seen from the entrance gate
The round tower I was in search of was the one on a hill overlooking the village of Turlough, Co. Mayo. To get there, I had to drive past the gates of The Museum of Country Life. It looked like a place worth visiting, but it had sensibly been closed for hours by then.
Happily, the graveyard where Turlough’s round tower stands is open at all hours. There are no neighbours to annoy, either inside or outside the cemetery walls, which is always a good thing. Allegedly.
The tower stands on top of a hill beside the remains of a ruined church. The church dates from the eighteenth century, although parts of an earlier church are incorporated into it. One of its walls has a particularly striking plaque depicting the Crucifixion, dating from 1625. “Lovely” probably isn’t the appropriate word for a scene involving crucifixion, but it is certainly an interesting piece of decoration.
1625 crucifixion plaque
Little is known about the monastery that once stood here. We don’t know who founded it or exactly when the round tower was built. Tradition has it that St. Patrick founded the original church which stood here, and that’s as good as it gets, really. What is immediately noticeable about the tower is its proportions. Unlike some of Ireland’s taller and more elegant round towers, Turlough’s is comparatively short and looks distinctly squat. It’s likely the tower’s lack of height was down to economics. Commerce was a thing even in olden times.
Unhappily the later church has been built right up against the tower. It actually gets in the way, literally and visually, and blocks a part of the tower. It’s one of those cases where you wish that the builder of the later church had picked a slightly different spot. Which is especially frustrating because the church is right up to the doorway of the tower, ruining what is (to me) a highlight of round towers.
The doorways
The original doorway of the tower has been blocked up, while a second doorway was added at a later date and has also been blocked. A grave now sits immediately in front of it,
The ruined church itself is locked, so there is no opportunity to poke around inside. There is still plenty to see outside, however, and the position on the hill makes the visit worthwhile even beyond the tower itself. The surrounding views are pleasant, and on a long summer evening there is little reason to hurry away.
And if you happen to arrive after the Museum of Country Life has closed, at least the round tower isn’t keeping office hours.
Getting there
This one is nice and easy to find and access. There’s plenty of room to park on the road outside.
Base of the towerThe doorwaysThe tower, as seen through a window in the church next doorThe tower, as seen from the entrance gate1625 crucifixion plaque
On a trip to Mayo, I decided to add a few more round towers to my stagnant checklist. First up was the tower at Aughagower, which is an easy one to find, standing as it does in the middle of a graveyard in a small village. As it happened, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had visited Aughagower just three weeks before yours truly. There were still a few Canadian flags fluttering about, adding a bit of colour to the quiet little village.
Aughagower church, tower and Canadian flag
I was amused to discover that the headstones belonging to Carney’s ancestors were located in what turned out to be a remarkably convenient spot for a visiting dignitary. They had clearly received a bit of attention recently and were looking remarkably spruce — almost as if they were expecting company. A quick look at Google Street View’s 2019 imagery suggests that they hadn’t always looked quite so pristine.
This tower has been through the wars. A large breach on the northern side was repaired in the 1960s. Before the repairs were carried out, parts of the tower’s interior had been visible from the graveyard outside.
Aughagower Round tower
The tower’s original doorway also shows signs of fire damage. It’s a reminder of just how vulnerable these towers could be if someone was determined to set one alight. Shove some flammable material through the doorway, set fire to it, and — whoosh!
There is also a second doorway at ground level, added at a later date. This gives visitors the rather rare opportunity to walk straight into a surviving round tower, which isn’t something you get to do every day.
The 2nd doorway
The original monastery is said to have been founded by St Senach in the 7th century. The tower now stands beside the ruins of a church dating from the 12th to 15th centuries.
There are also two dried-up holy wells across the road from the graveyard. Works on drainage and water supply in the locality dried them up, but they’re still easy to find. The graveyard itself is quite uneven, so watch your step.
Getting There
Aughagower is 8km from Westport, and the drive takes about 10 minutes. The tower is in an old graveyard, right beside the village church. If you can’t find this one, I don’t know what I can say to you.
Gallery
The 2nd doorwayAughagower windowAughagower Tower DoorwayAughagower Round towerSpruced up Carney headstonesAughagower church, tower and Canadian flagA view of the 2nd doorwayAughagower Mural
Cobh is a harbour town located about 25 km from Cork City. Called Queenstown until 1922, it is perhaps best known internationally as the final port of call of the ill-fated RMSTitanic. Before I get to that story, though, it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate this bustling and historic town in its own right.
One fact that surprised me was that Cobh is actually situated on an island, although it has long been connected to the mainland by a bridge. The town overlooks Cork Harbour, one of the largest natural harbours in the world. Combined with its position on Ireland’s south coast, this made it an ideal location for a major port.
As an aside, two other islands in Cork Harbour are also notable. Spike Island served as both a fortress and, later, a prison for many years, while Haulbowline Island is home to the Irish Naval Service.
St Colman’s Cathedral, overlooking the town.
One of the earliest large ships to depart from Cobh—then known as the Cove of Cork—was the Queen in 1791. A convict ship bound for Australia, she called here before beginning the long voyage to Botany Bay in Sydney. During the 19th century, the town developed into a major port and became one of Ireland’s principal departure points for emigrants heading to North America and Australia. Following Queen Victoria’s visit in 1849, the town was renamed Queenstown, a name it retained until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. If your Irish is a little rusty, don’t worry—Cobh is pronounced exactly the same as Cove, the town’s original English name.
While emigrant ships no longer leave from here, cruise liners continue to call. Anyone taking the time to wander the streets—and I highly recommend that you do—won’t have to look far to find reminders of the town’s rich maritime heritage. The former offices of the White Star Line and Cunard still stand, while the remains of the old piers evoke the days when countless emigrants began new lives overseas. Outside the railway station, a statue of Annie Moore commemorates the first immigrant processed through Ellis Island after it opened in 1892.
Lusitania Memorial
The Titanic isn’t the only famous ocean liner associated with Cobh. On 7 May 1915, the RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20 off the nearby Old Head of Kinsale. Of the 1,962 people on board, 1,198 lost their lives, making it one of the greatest maritime disasters of the First World War. Many of the victims are buried in the Old Church Cemetery just outside the town, while a memorial in Casement Square commemorates those who never made it home.
1911 just called. It wants its ship back
It’s hard to miss St Colman’s Cathedral, which stands high above the town and dominates the skyline. It took more than 50 years to build and was finally completed in 1919. Its construction was partly funded by donations from Irish emigrants who had left in search of a better life abroad. The cathedral is home to the only carillon—a keyboard-operated set of bells—in the Republic of Ireland. With 49 bells, visitors to Cobh are frequently treated to music drifting across the town and harbour. In 1953, the famous comedy duo Laurel and Hardy visited Cobh. They were visibly moved when the cathedral’s bells rang out with their signature tune, The Cuckoo Song, during the warm welcome the town gave them.
Not all of Cobh’s famous names are linked to the sea. The town is also the birthplace of Olympic silver medallist Sonia O’Sullivan, and a statue on the waterfront pays tribute to one of Ireland’s greatest distance runners.
The Titanic Experience
Titanic Experience
The Titanic Experience is housed in the original White Star Line ticket office, where the last passengers checked in before boarding the Titanic. Rather than telling the story of the ship itself, the attraction focuses on the people who boarded here on 11 April 1912. At the start of the tour, each visitor is given a boarding card with the details of one of the 123 passengers who joined the ship at Queenstown. As the guided tour unfolds, you follow their story and, at the end, discover whether they survived. It’s a simple idea, but one that humanises the tragedy and creates more of a connection. I was relieved to discover that the passenger whose story I had been following lived to tell the tale.
As the guided tour unfolds, you follow the story of your passenger while learning about the events leading up to the disaster. One of the highlights is stepping outside onto the original platform where the last passengers waited to board the tender that would take them out to the Titanic, anchored in Cork Harbour. Standing in the very place where they took their final steps on land gives the story a real sense of immediacy. The tour also includes a replica first-class cabin, an insight into conditions experienced by many third-class passengers, and an animated recreation of the sinking.
The tour concludes with an exhibition of Titanic artefacts, including White Star Line crockery, promotional leaflets and other memorabilia. While the museum doesn’t have the scale of Titanic Belfast, that’s hardly surprising given it’s housed in the original White Star Line ticket office. There’s still plenty to see, and I spent a good while browsing the exhibits before leaving.
Yet again, my talent for visiting heritage sites under scaffolding does not disappoint
Ormond Castle in Carrick-on-Suir is a little bit different to your usual castle visit. For starters, the site isn’t obviously a castle. What catches the eye aren’t the ruins of the castle which are there, but the Elizabethan Tudor manor house built onto it. As we know, Tudor manor houses aren’t all that common in Ireland. This one could’ve been soo much more Elizabethan if only Queen Elizabeth I (i.e. Ms Elizabethan herself) had bothered to come and visit.
Anyway, let’s go back a bit in time. A castle was first built on the site in the fourteenth century. At the time it was very close to the River Suir (as depicted in a rather nice model that’s on display in the visitor centre) and was strategically important. It was originally owned by the Wall family but was given to the powerful Butler Family. James Butler would later become the first Earl of Ormond. The Butler family, incidentally, also owned Kilkenny Castle for many centuries.
Model depicting the castle and the river
Over 200 years later, Thomas Butler, the Tenth Earl of Ormond built the Tudor manor house onto the castle. Black Tom, as he was also known, was a cousin of Queen Elizabeth I through her mother Anne Boleyn. He became close friends with Elizabeth. So close, in fact, that there were rumours they were more than good friends. Elizabeth was known to refer to him as her “Black husband”.
The Long Gallery (photo not mine)
Thomas invited Elizabeth to come visit him in Ireland and she accepted the invitation. In 1565 he built the manor house here, in preparation for her visit. As an Elizabethan-style house, it had larger windows, brick chimneys and a layout different to traditional Irish buildings. It has a beautiful long hall that has some pretty amazing stucco plasterwork on the walls and ceiling.
Sideways view of the model, showing how the manor house was built onto the castle
Disappointingly for Tom, Elizabeth was long on promises but short on action. She never did get around to visiting the manor house he had built for her.
“She had promised to visit when her Irish wars were won”
In 1588 Thomas became a Knight of the Garter and in 1597 he became Lieutenant General of Ireland in 1597. He also found the time to get married 3 times and fathered at least 16 children (4 inside the marriages, 12 elsewhere). When he died in 1614, his illegitimate son Piers FitzThomas Butler of Duiske benefited most from his will. This led to rumours that Piers might’ve been a child he’d had with Elizabeth.
Over time the financial clout and power of the Butler family diminished. The house was abandoned in the late 17th century and fell into ruin. The Butlers handed the site over to the Irish state in 1947
Some of the castle ruins
The castle and manor house have undergone significant restoration since then. In recent years the manor house was plastered over again. If you do a google image search, you can see plenty of photos of the manor house with its stonework exposed.
Even if Elizabeth couldn’t be bothered coming to visit, it is worth a trip if you fancy looking at something that isn’t yet another castle. There are some remnants of the castle on the site, including the tower house. The guided tour didn’t bring us in there but perhaps that may change in the future. There’s also a short film on the history of the castle and a museum with some interesting bits and bobs
Getting There
The castle closes over the winter time, so check Heritage Ireland’s website before planning your visit. As of 2024 its season is running from March-November. More details here
The castle is accessed through the park you can see on Google Streetview. Carrick on Suir is a busy town so you may not find parking right beside the castle. Astonishingly, the payment machine in the nearby council-run New Street Car Park didn’t offer a contactless card payment option. If you don’t have enough coins to hand (luckily we did) then you’re required to download an app and pre-load it with credit. That’s fine if you park in Co. Tipperary on a regular basis. If you’re on a one-time visitor then it’s daylight robbery.
I haven’t posted here for a while so I have some catching up to do. The first new/old post I’ll do is about the Temple Church in London. When staying in the city last year, I had the good fortune to stay in a (then) very reasonably priced hotel that was right next door.
Temple Church as seen through my hotel room window
I knew very little about the church other than that it popped up in The Da Vinci Code which I read about 20 years ago, and that it had something to do with the Knights Templar. It turns out to be far more interesting than that and has connections to one of my favourite places in Ireland.
Approaching from Fleet Street
The church is at the end of a laneway, a short walk from Fleet Street. It’s nestled in the middle of London’s legal district and is surrounded by impressive looking office buildings and gardens. It’s also nice and peaceful which is always welcome in this part of the world.
The West Doorway
The first thing of note when you reach the church is its impressive looking West Doorway. It’s the entrance into the round part of this unusual church – more of that in a moment. Part of the decorations on the doorway include heads wearing turbans, caps and buttons. Some of these point to the interesting history of the people who built it.
The organisation which became known as the Knights Templar was founded in 1118. One of its aims was to protect pilgrims travelling to and from Jerusalem. Although they were based in Jerusalem, in time they built a base in London. In 1162 a round church was built here, inspired by the (also round) Church of the Holy Sepulchre back in Jerusalem. A chancel was later added. The area surrounding the church became known as Temple and it became the centre of religious, political and political life in London.
The Best Knight That Ever Lived
The entrance into the church is just around the corner and once inside, you’re free to roam and get a good look at the place. One of the first things to be seen in the church are 9 male effigies on the floor. The most remarkable of them all is probably that of William Marshal, the first Earl of Pembroke. He has been described as “The Best Knight that Ever Lived”. He certainly lived an eventful life and his influence extended across into Ireland. Amongst other things, he was responsible for the building of Hook Lighthouse in County Wexford 😎 William served four Kings of England and was one of the main negotiators involved in the drawing up of the Magna Carta. Indeed he was one of the signatories of it. When excavations were carried out in the church in 1842, medieval coffins were found under the floor. These are thought to have included William.
Some of the effigies, along with 19th-century replicas of them. These were created before the church was badly damaged in 1941
Being a tower freak, it wasn’t long before I was heading up the stairs and into the gallery. Perhaps it’s for the best that I didn’t spot any signs of the creepy tiny penitential cell that’s just off the stairs. It’s little more than the size of a broom cupboard. The story goes that an unfortunate man called Walter Bachelor was locked into the cell and left to starve to death in 1301. Is the story true? It isn’t clear but it was just one of the nefarious rumours about the Templars which were floating around at the time. On Friday 13th October 1307, King Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V moved to end the Knights Templar. King Edward II handed the church over to the order of St. John.
Like just about every other old building, the church was tweaked over the years. Sir Christopher Wren made some changes to it, but nothing like what the Victorians did. Their alterations weren’t universally popular. However, most of that was lost on the night of 10th May 1941 when German bombers dropped over 700 tons of explosives over London. Along with the huge cost to human life (an estimated 1,400 deaths and 2,000 injuries), huge swathes of the city were destroyed. The Temple Church, which had survived the Great Fire of London, was one of the casualties. It was badly damaged during the fire and it took 14 years for the church to be fully repaired.
Encaustic tiles
Amusingly, some of the mediaeval-inspired encaustic floor tiles which the Victorians had laid survived. These can be seen up in the gallery and they’re very striking. I also learned a new word – encaustic, encaustic…
Wonky columns
The fire had shattered the original columns in the church, so new ones were quarried for it. The originals had been noted for their crookedness, so when they were rebuilding, they continued the tradition. It goes without saying that the fire also destroyed the original church organ. Its replacement came from an unlikely source – Glen Tanar castle in Scotland. The organ had originally been built for the castle ballroom but the acoustics in the room didn’t suit it. (As an aside, I’ve never seen so many deer antlers in the one place…). And so, the organ was gifted to the church by Lord Glentanar and it was shipped down to London. Not only did it sound much much better in its new home, it gained a reputation for being a really great organ. Much of the soundtrack to Christopher Nolan’s 2014 film Interstellar was recorded on this organ, with resident organist Roger Sayer collaborating with composer Hans Zimmer. Unfortunately, I visited on a Monday so I didn’t get to hear one of the church’s Wednesday lunchtime recitals.
Churches to visit are ten-a-penny in London but this one comes highly recommended. Even though it was badly damaged during the war, the painstaking restoration of it is superb. It’s an unusual church with an interesting, sometimes dark history. And by London admission price standards, the entrance fee is pretty reasonable (£5 at the time of writing)
A recent trip to Galway afforded me the opportunity to “bag” another round tower. And so, I went in search of the tower at Roscam, which is on the outskirts of the city, overlooking Oranmore Bay. It’s a beautiful location, though the view is hampered somewhat by the inevitable development on the other side of the bay.
Very little is known about the monastery which once stood here. It is thought it may have been established here in the 5th century, which would make it one of the oldest monastic settlements in Ireland. It has been associated with St. Patrick (yep, that one) and with Odran, brother to St. Ciarán of Clonmacnoise. In 807, the site was attacked by those serial monastery pillagers, the Vikings. The monastery might also be where the bones of King Brión mac Echach Muigmedóin were brought to by Saint Aedus. There are question marks as to whether King Brión ever actually existed so you can make up your own mind.
The putlock holes are still visible on the tower
The tower stands 10.98m tall and is unusual for two reasons. One is that the lintelled doorway is quite low to the ground. The other is that the tower still has numerous putlock (or putlog) holes on its external walls. These were used to support scaffolding while the towers were being built, but were covered up afterwards. The presence of these holes in the tower raises doubts as to whether this particular one was ever finished. There is just one window in the tower, directly over the door. At some point afterwards, somebody attempted to add some height to the tower but the new stonework is not of the quality of what went before.
The church, and some company…
Close to the tower are the ruins of a medieval church. I wasn’t able to get near them because of the extensive stone walls and unclimbable gates in the area. Some of these are the remnants of ancient fortifications and they’re still doing their work effectively in 2021!
Far more interesting is the ancient graveyard which overlooks the bay. It doesn’t appear to be still in use but it looks like it was used extensively over the centuries. It’s populated with lots of broken, illegible headstones and rocks and it’s wonderful. There are two large bullaun stones in there as well, one of which is associated with St. Patrick. It seems the great snake banisher was also a dab hand at making round dents in big rocks.
One of the bullaun stones in the grave yard
By a long shot, this was the trickiest round tower to get to. For better or worse, I accessed it by driving along the Rosshill Road, then walked (carefully!) along the rocky beach that runs south of the site. Then some clambering over stone walls and navigating electric fences came into the equation. The tower is in the middle of a working farm, so naturally the animals come first.
Every now and then, a new round tower gets added to the list of known towers. In 2018, some mortar from a ruined tower in the grounds of a grammar school in Derry were radiocarbon dated. It had been thought that the tower was a ruined windmill but the analysis of the mortar revealed it to be an older building. Evidence suggests it could quite likely be a round tower that had been known to have stood in the area.
The rediscovery of the tower at Liathmore, Co. Tipperary took place nearly 50 years before this. In 1969-70 Dr. Robin E. Glasscock from Queens University, Belfast led excavations at this site. The foundations of the tower were found, along with some worked ashlars which were later used to reconstruct the base. The foundations went to a depth of 2.6 metres which is unusually deep for a round tower. As to why the tower vanished and was forgotten about, that’s anybody’s guess. Subsequent to the excavations, the Office of Public Works (OPW) reconstructed the base of the tower using the material found during the dig. The base is surrounded by a larger circular stone wall, constructed by the OPW to protect it from cattle.
The reconstructed base of Liathmore Round Tower. To its north is the smaller and older of the two churches here.
The monastery here was founded by St. Mochoemóg in the early 7th century. Tradition has it that he is buried in the larger church. And in a blurring of fact and fiction, he features in some versions of the Children of Lir story as the monk who baptised the four swans and turned them back into humans. Local folklore has it that every four years, four swans return to the area and spend a week here.
The tower base is situated almost half way between two ruined churches. Apart from these, there is evidence of a settlement which once existed here, perhaps until the 16th or 17th century. These lumps and bumps in the ground are easily visible in the area around the larger church
Aerial photo of the tower base and the two churches.
The smaller of the two is an 11th-century oratory. The larger church dates from the 12th century, though it was modified after that. Alterations made in the 15th century are quite noticeable here. There is a loft and steps that access the roof. This church has some interesting features, including some carved heads over the doorway and a Sheela-na-Gig that’s a little hard to find unless you know where to look (fnar). I visited this site on a sunny summer’s evening and wasn’t able to get a decent picture of said exhibitionist. So if you’re curious, there are pics on the “Ireland’s Síle na Gigs” website.
This site wouldn’t make it onto my “must see” list but it was a pleasant way to spend a sunny summer’s evening. The larger church in particular is interesting to look at. Because it’s a much altered building, there are random carvings set into doorways and masonry to look at inside.
Heads!
Getting There
This site is trickier to find than most of the others because it is on private farmland and isn’t signposted from the main road. The entrance to the farm, and the farm track out to the site, look a bit different to the 2009 Google Streetview imagery. Other online accounts of visiting this site mention the mud and advise wearing wellies, so I left my visit to this one until we’d had a dry spell of weather.
