Indicated — Leana

On a small platform near the foot of a SE-facing slope, in pasture. Drawn as an E-W orientated rectangular building on the first edition (1842) of the OS 6-inch map. Drawn similarly on the OS 25-inch plan (1897) but with a broken outline (L c. 9n E-W; c. 5m N-S) and with the label ‘Cowlnabrawher (Cill-mic-an-Donain) (Site of)’. Given the same label on the Cassini edition (1920) of the OS 6-inch map, but indicated only by a cross. Labelled ‘site of Cill Mhic an Domhain’ on Robinson’s map of the Burren (1977). George Macnamara (1897, 77) traced the first reference to this church to c. 1350, where Cill-mic-Ui-Donain (the Ascetic’s Church) is mentioned as a place past which Dermot O’Brien and Maccon Macnamara and their army marched in 1317. In 1896, Macnamara was informed about the church’s location, then known as Coulnamraher - i.e., Cabhal na mBrathar, ‘the ruined house of the Friars’ -  (ibid., 78). According to his sources, the church walls had stood to about five feet high [c. 1.5m] 40 or 50 years before, when they were removed to build boundary walls. No visible surface trace of this church survives. A D-shaped platform (37m NW-SE; 15m NE-SW) on which the church stood is defined by a moderate slope (max. H 3m; Wth 10m) from W-N-E, and by a more graduated ‘natural’ hillslope eslewhere. People who had seen the church remains described the structure to Macnamara (ibid.) as measuring about twenty by fifteen feet [c. 6m by c. 4.5m] and orientated ESE-WNW (ibid.). Macnamara (ibid., 78-9) gave details about many architectural fragments in the walls of the field around the church site (see also Westropp 1900-1902, 140; Swinfen 1992, 10-11). One of these architectural fragments (CL017-018003-) was subsequently moved to the front garden of a house c. 480m to the S (CL017-288----). Another architectural fragment from the church which was mentioned by Macnamara (1897, 78) is a bullaun stone (CL017-018002-) situated in a field wall to the W (Swinfen 1992, 11). The other architectural fragments detailed by Macnamara (1897, 78-9) were not found during an inspection in 1998. Situated c. 225m to the NE of the church site is a medieval house (CL017-021----), known locally as Tigh na mBráthar (Robinson 1977) due to a tradition that this ‘House of the Friars’ was the home of ‘the priests who officiated in Cill-mic-Ui-Donain’ (Macnamara 1897, 79).   Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy and Conn Herriott   Date of upload: 23-10-2025