What is recorded here

Ecclesiastical enclosure in Glebe (kells By.),kells,rathduff (madden) was a sacred boundary in County Kilkenny, Ireland, centred on the old parish church of St Kieran. The Normans replaced St Kieran with the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, yet the church survived into the 17th century by absorbing Romanesque fragments from its earlier self. A curving earthen bank still marks part of the enclosure, running from Kells priory toward a former walled garden. The land remembers that identity can be displaced, broken and rebuilt without disappearing.

Carrigan (1905, vol. 4, 56) notes that, ‘Down to the Norman Invasion, St. Kieran, of Saighir, was patron of Kells parish and parish church; soon after the old patron was laid aside, and both parish and church were dedicated to the Exaltation of the Holy Cross’. The old parish church of St Kieran (KK027-029009-), which was probably rebuilt in the 17th century incorporating Romanesque fragments from the earlier church, is likely to have been at the centre of an ecclesiastical enclosure which has been identified by Clyne (2007, 19-20). Clyne (ibid. 19) suggests that one portion of this large curvilinear enclosure survives as a curving field boundary (L c. 90m), indicated on the 1st (1839) ed. OS 6-inch map and visible at ground level as a low earthen bank (H 0.5-0.8m; Wth c. 2.5m), which runs south-eastward from the SE tower of the outer bawn of Kells priory (KK027-029004-) to the NE angle of a former walled garden/orchard, also depicted on the 6-inch OS maps. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 10 May 2023

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