What is recorded here

Kilcameen Church vanished before human memory, leaving only a circular cashel and a children’s burial ground on a Clare rise. The place still carries Caimín’s name, linking it to the sixth-century saint of Inniscaltra, while Tobar Chaimín bubbles thirty metres south. What is striking is the absence: no wall, hall or tower remains, only field, fence and forgetting.

On a rise in undulating pasture, within a large multiperiod field system (CL009-059001-), with wide views from S to N and higher ground to the E. A hachured circular enclosure (see cashel CL009-059101-) is labelled ‘Site of Kilcameen Church’ on the 1842 ed. of the OS 6-inch map. On the 1920 ed., it is named ‘Kilcameen Church (Site of) and the symbol for ‘Site of’ is shown within a small roughly rectangular ‘Grave Yard’ (see CL009-059008-), which is indicated by a broken line. Labelled ‘Cill Chaimín’ on Robinson’s map (1977). In the Ordnance Survey Letters of 1839, Eugene Curry noted that: ‘The site of an old Church and burying ground lie in the Townland of Caherminane and within the Caher. They call this place Cill-Chainín, at the same time they don’t believe it to have been a Church at all’ (Comber 1997, 90). Westropp (1900-1902, 137) suggested that the postulated church may have been founded by Caimín of Inniscaltra (c. AD 640) (see also Swinfen 1992, 33). No visible surface trace of it survives within the cashel, in which there is a children’s burial ground (CL009-059008-), a cist (CL009-059010-) and a cairn. Tobar Chaimín holy well (CL009-059010-) lies c. 34m to the S. (Large 20211) Compiled by: Olive Alcock and Conn Herriott Date of upload: 9 March 2022

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