Clonkeen Church is a medieval

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

and a

National Monument A national monument is a monument constructed in order to commemorate something of importance to national heritage, such as a country's founding, independence, war, or the life and death of a historical figure. The term may also refer to a sp ...

County Limerick County Limerick () is a western Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and is located in the Mid-West Region, Ireland, Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Reg ...

, Ireland.

Location

The church is located on the R506 road, near

Barringtonsbridge Killeenagarriff () is a civil parish in the historical barony of Clanwilliam in County Limerick, Ireland. Settlements in Killeenagarriff include the town of Annacotty, and population centres at Ahane and Barringtonsbridge. The Roman Catholic ch ...

approximately southeast of

Annacotty Annacotty () is a small village on the outskirts of Limerick, Republic of Ireland, Ireland, from the centre of the city. It is situated where the old N7 road (Ireland), N7 main road between Limerick and Dublin crosses the Mulkear River, upstr ...

, north of the River Mulkear.

History

A monastery was founded here by Saint Mo-Diomog (feast day 10 December) in the 6th or 7th century. The present church dates to the mid-12th century (based on its similarity to

Aghadoe Cathedral Aghadoe Cathedral was a church that may have been the seat of a bishop at Aghadoe, Ireland (later joined with the Bishop of Ardfert and Aghadoe, Bishopric of Ardfert). The now ruined cathedral overlooks the Lakes of Killarney from Aghadoe, a few ...

, dated to 1158). The church was ruined by 1657.

Church

Clonkeen Church is a small rectangular church with

antae The Antes or Antae () were an early Slavic tribal polity of the 6th century CE. They lived on the lower Danube River, in the northwestern Black Sea region (present-day Moldova and central Ukraine), and in the regions around the Don River (in ...

at the east and west ends. The west part of the church, incorporating the west doorway is Romanesque, built of roughly coursed large stones, mostly

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

. It has a well-preserved doorway with an

arch An arch is a curved vertical structure spanning an open space underneath it. Arches may support the load above them, or they may perform a purely decorative role. As a decorative element, the arch dates back to the 4th millennium BC, but stru ...

of three

orders Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * H ...

, with Romanesque carving around the

jamb In architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and cons ...

s. The

capitals Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

and

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member ...

s with

chevrons Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to: Science and technology * Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines * Chevron (anatomy), a bone * '' Eulithis testata'', a moth * Chevron (geology), a fold in rock la ...

are similar to those at Aghadoe.

References

{{Reflist Former churches in County Limerick Archaeological sites in County Limerick National monuments in County Limerick