Grange Church — Kill OF THE Grange

Kill of the Grange (Kill of the Grange/Chill na Gráinsí/Church of the Grange or Monastic Farm) was the early Christian monastery of Clonkeen (Cluain Caoin/pleasant meadow or pasture) founded by St Fintan in the 6th century. According to Monasticon Hibernicum, Clonkeen; 'is now called the Kill-of-the-Grange, which was dedicated to St. Fintan, of Drumhing. The nave and chancel are in ruins; in the cemetery, north of the church, stands a broken granite cross of ancient workmanship. The possessions of Christ Church in this place are between 500 and 600 acres. It is now called the Dean's Grange. In 1796 these lands were valued at £869 5s. 10d.' (Archdall 1786, 332). In 1178/9 a Charter of St Laurence listed the possessions of Christ Church Catherdal also known as Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in the See of Dublin which included, 'Cluaincoin [Kill of-the-Grange]' (Donnelly 1889, 37). Around the year 1200 AD the archbishop of Dublin confirmed the grants made by William Marsicall, Earl of Pembroke, Isabella his wide and Raymond le Gross to this church, and King John confirmed all their possessions which included; 'Clonchen [Clonkeen], the donation of Ruad, the son of Donal King of Leinster (ibid.). In the 'Liber Niger' of Archbishop Alan, the church in Kill of the Grange was recorded as being dedicated to St. Fintan. In 1896 the ecclesiastical site was described as consisting of; ‘a primitive church, two stone crosses, a remarkable well, and a lettered bullán rock or stone, perhaps the most curious remain of its mysterious class to be found in Ireland’ (Anon. 1896, 403). The nearby holy well and its possible association with St Mogue was described in 1896 as follows; ‘This remarkable fount, which may be found at a short distance from the church, just a little within the gate entrance to a lawn appertaining to the "Abbey" (a picturesque and venerable residence of the Espinasse family dating from the sixteenth century), was, within my own memory, styled by some ancient people of the neighbourhood the "British Well." How it acquired this singular title must, I fear, remain a subject for conjecture. Some forty years ago I was informed on the spot that a parcel of land in the immediate neighbourhood was called by the old people "Mimoge," or " Moymoge," i.e. the Plain of Mogue, St. Mogue, Madhog, Moog, or Aedan was one of the most famous of Erin's early saints. He was a great traveller and church-founder in Britain, as well as in many parts of this country. Not a few of his Irish ecclesiastical establishments have been identified, but the exact position of others it seems now impossible to trace. It appears not unlikely that on one of his visits to Erin he was accompanied from Wales by a number of British ecclesiastics with whom he may have sojourned, for a time at least, at Clonkene, now, as we have seen, called Kill-o'-the-Grange. By the interest of Brandubh, King of Leinster, who is said to have been his half-brother, St. Aedan, or Mogue, was consecrated to the primacy of the Lagenians, and his see fixed at Ferns in the county of Wexford. There, on the 31st of January, A.D. 624, he died full of years and honours’ (ibid. 406-7). The bullaun stone was described in 1896 as; ‘Just within the gate of the Espinasse lawn is a granite mass, 9 feet in length by 6 in breadth, rising slightly above the ground. This may be either a huge boulder, or portion of the "living rock." Upon its somewhat sloping surface have been artificially sunk two basin-like hollows of a class usually styled, by Irish-speaking people, Bullán, i.e., in English, Little Pools. The bulláns at the Kill are slightly unequal in size, one measuring 14, the other 13, inches in diameter; they are 14 inches in depth, and in section present the figure of an acutely-pointed inverted cone. Close beneath the smaller and lower example is an inscription, now much worn by elemental action, consisting of three letters. These characters, DOM, are, as will be acknowledged by experts in such matters, perhaps as old as any lapidary inscription of Christian times found in Ireland. They doubtless stand for DOMINI, DOMINO, or, possibly, for the words DEO OPTIMO MAXIMO’ (ibid. 407-8). The present church and graveyard stands in the parish of Kill, barony of Rathdown and occupies a portion of the early Christian monastery of Clonkeen which was originally enclosed by a monastic enclosure (DU023-015013-) which was discovered by Paul Duffy during excavations in 2018. Situated on a low rise, in a green area now used as St. Fintan's Park housing estate. The upstanding church remains consists of a pre-Norman single cell church (National Monument No. 207) which was extended by to E by the addition of a late medieval chancel which now stands within a graveyard (DU023-015002-) enclosed by a post-1700 stone wall (Wakeman 1891, 702; Ball 1902, 251-2, Turner 1983, 40-41). Within the graveyard are the bases of two early medieval crosses (DU023-015004/008-) with a bullaun stone (DU023-015007-) outside the graveyard approx. 10m to the W of the SW corner of the graveyard wall. A holy well (DU023-015003-) lies 37m to the NW of the church. A medieval house (DU023-015010-) known locally as 'Kill Abbey' stands 50m to the W of the graveyard boundary wall. Church remains described by Harbison (1970, 78) as; 'A small church with antae and a (partly reconstructed) flat-headed doorway to which a chancel was added. The original church is Early Christian in date, but the chancel was added possibly as late as the 16th century. The round-headed doorway in the south wall is later than the original church. Inside the church is a cross-base with small cross which was removed there recently from the housing-estate 100 yards south-west of the church. In the graveyard are one cross-inscribed slab, and the base and fragments of a cross recently broken by vandals'. A granite cross base (DU023-015008-) within the nave of the church contains a rectangular mortice (L 0.31m, Wth 0.25m, D. 0.12m). Within the graveyard W of the church is a granite slab inscribed with a Greek cross. It tapers from top to bottom (L 0.8m, Wth 0.42m). Immediately SW of the graveyard is a granite bullaun stone (DU023-015007-) with a circular-shaped hollow (diam. 0.4m, D 0.28m). Two crosses (DU023-015004-) from the former laneway into the graveyard are now in the OPW depot at Trim, county Meath. A holy well (DU023-015003-) formerly lay a short distance from the church and graveyard. This was filled in the mid 1980's leaving no visible surface trace (Healy 1975, 1-19). Crawford (1913) described a triangular cross-inscribed stone (DU023-015006-) from the graveyard at Kill of the Grange (DU023-015002-) which could not be located (Ó hÉailidhe 1959, 165; Healy 1975, 1-19). The following report describes the results of an archaeological excavation (Ministerial Consent C00845, Reg. No. E004940) at St. Fintan’s Park, Kill of the Grange, Dublin within the construction corridor for a drainage pipeline which traversed the zone of notification for Kill of the Grange Church (National Monument No. 207, DU023-015001), well and bullaun stone (National Monument 587, DU023-015003) and graveyard (DU023-015002). The drainage works, associated with construction of a residential development to the north, were carried out between 13th December 2017 and 26th January 2018. The southeast limit of the pipeline corridor (c. 45m length) passed within 6m of the current graveyard wall traversing the zone of notification for the church, which is a National Monument (No. 207). The current excavation was undertaken on behalf of Elliot Group in response to a reported threat to the National Monument received by the Monument Protection Division of the National Monuments Service (NMS) on 15th December 2017. 'Archaeological monitoring of groundworks proceeded from 5th January 2018 and archaeological features were immediately identified within a section of the pipeline corridor adjacent to the graveyard wall.