Church (in Ruins) — Annaduff

Situated on a gentle W-facing slope overlooking the River Shannon. This is the site of an early monastery called Enach Dubh – the black marsh – which was founded by St Cuimín Cadhan in AD 669. This may have been Cuimin Fionn, abbot of Iona, but the name probably indicates a dedication to Columcille. Cuimín Cadhan was descended from the Dál gCais of Clare (Ó Riain 2011, 243). The deaths of abbots are recorded in 767 and 792 (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 28), and the monastery may have been defunct before 1200. It became the parish church of Annaghduff, and is listed in the 'Register of Clonmacnoise' (O'Donovan 1857, 451; Pinkman 1942, 35). The parish church is referred to in 1470 (MacNamee 1954, 547-8) when it was one of the seven churches of the rectory of Muinter Eolais (Scully 2019, 133). The surviving remains consist mostly of the medieval church, but it had been remodelled with a W doorway and two inserted windows in both the N and S walls during the eighteenth century. It continued as the parish church until the present Church of Ireland church was built c. 1815 (Lewis 1837, 28) on a new site just to the NE. An illustration by Gross from c.1820 shows it still roofed beside the new church (Stalley 1991, 94-5). The church is a rectangular limestone structure surviving to the eaves (ext. dims 14.2m E-W; 8.5m N-S; H 3.5m) with dressed quoins and a modernised doorway (Wth 1.7m) at W but the walls are completely overgrown with ivy. There are two blocked rectangular windows in both the S and N walls and a single-light decorated 15th-century window in the E gable which is inserted over the base of a simpler window and which is illustrated by Grosse (ibid. 204-5). There are two corbels with carved heads at roof level at the SE and SW angles. The church is within a rectangular graveyard (dims c. 60m WNW-ESE; c. 40m NNE-SSW) defined by masonry walls, which is itself within an ecclesiastical enclosure identified through remote sensing techniques in the field NW of the old graveyard (Curran 2016; 2019, 57-8). This identified three if not four parallel arcs of what are likely to be ditch features placed 18m, 14m and 11m apart and centred on the old church. If the arcs are entire they would enclose a large area (diam. c. 100m). Archaeological testing (94E0051) on the line of the N4 road c. 100m to the NE of the church and outside the area of the ecclesiastical enclosure failed to record any related archaeological features (Opie 1995e). The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Leitrim' compiled by Michael J. Moore (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2003). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of revised upload: 6 June 2018