What is recorded here

Indicated is an ecclesiastical enclosure at Templemore in County Clare, Ireland, where a thick hedge of bramble and hawthorn has swallowed the wall. It resembles the half-demolished ring around Canon Island abbey, suggesting a forgotten boundary rather than an ordinary garden edge. The hidden wall may have marked sacred ground, excluded strangers or contained a community now lost beneath leaves.

Westropp (1915, 272) in describing the ecclesiastical enclosure at Templemore (CL017-094001-) says ‘the wall is entirely overgrown and a thick hedge of bramble and hawthorn covers it, like the great, half demolished ring, in which the Abbey of Canons’ Island in the Fergus stands’. He includes a plan of Canon Island abbey (ibid., p. 271) showing the enclosure extant from N to SW. The area around the abbey (CL060-011001-) on Canon Island is very overgrown with near impenetrable vegetation cover. The enclosing feature is visible on an aerial photograph (CUCAP BGJ036) prior to the growth of vegetation. Part of a wall was identified E of the abbey in 2002, at its base was a bank (max. H 0.7m) but not enough remained to determine if it was curving. An arched gatehouse (CL060-011007-) lies along the line of the possible enclosure at SW. Compiled by: Mary Tunney Date of upload: 3 July 2019

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.