Church in Inishkeen Glebe

Situated on the S bank and in a loop of the NW-SE Faun River, with the stream c. 50m to the NE. A monastery was established here by St Daigh, whose origins are uncertain. He could be descended from Ceinéal Eoghain of Donegal, or in another account from the Déise of Meath or even the Ciannachta of Breagha. His Life, which may have been written under Augustinian influence, associates him with Clonmacnoise. Daigh was a renowned craftsman and died in AD 588 (Ó Riain 2011, 252-3). The names of many abbots are recorded in the annals down to AD 930, while erenachs are mentioned down to AD 1085 (Shirley 1879, 382-90). The monastery was burned in AD 789, plundered in AD 948 and burned again in AD 1166 (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 37-8). Thereafter it became a parish church and is recorded in the ecclesiastical taxation (1302-06) of Pope Nicholas IV as Deynisdega (Deynifdega) (Cal. doc. Ire. 5, 212). The names of some of the clergy are known from 1530, and the church was described as ruinous in 1622, by which time the tithes were impropriate to the abbey of Louth (LH011-115005-). The present Church of Ireland church, now closed, was constructed in 1854 (Leslie 1929, 208-210), at which time a prehistoric cist (MO029-031005-) was discovered (Reade 1855). (McKenna 1920, 1, 402-17) The round tower (RO029-031002-) was described (Reade 1855, 376-7) as having a circumference of ‘51 feet (ext. diam. c. 4.85m) and survives to a height of 42 feet (c. 12.8m)’. The rebuilt lintelled doorway is 4.1m off the ground and faces SE. Debris in the interior was cleared to 0.75m below ground level in 1973 (Barrow 1979, 172-3). The tower had three internal floors according to Reade, but only two levels of internal corbels survive (ibid.). No trace of the medieval church remains, apart from one piece of a window surround with a glazing-groove, although some cut stones are said to have been built into the fabric of the present structure, which is within a sub-triangular graveyard (max. dims c. 70m N-S; c. 65m E-W) defined by masonry walls and with a right-angle at the SW. There are three mausoleums in a N-S line SE of the church (N: ext. dims 6.55m E-W; 4.3m N-S; central: 6.55m E-W; 4.55m N-S; S: 5.25m plus N-S; 4.4m E-W) now visible just as the base of the walls (T 0.6m; H 0.5-1.5m). The N and central ones have doorways (Wth 0.95m) on the W side with external rebates, and the central one, which is structurally the earliest, probably had the inscription, now missing, commemorating Ardell Mac Coll Mac Mahon with the date 1672 (Bradshaw 1888, 225). Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of revised upload: 1 December 2016