Site of St. Kierans Church — Report the wrong picture

What is recorded here

Kilkiaran lost its church walls but kept its boundary, a rectangular grave field scattered with rough stones that may be the demolished building itself. The site sits beside the Sruhnasilloge river in Lisnatawna, where a bullaun stone, pillar stone and nearby stoup still mark the place as more than ordinary ground. Whatever Kieran meant there, the townland never stopped remembering it.

Located c. 50m NW of the Sruhnasilloge river which flows southwestward. According to the OS Letters (1839), ‘There is a little obsolete burying ground in the Townland of Kilkiaran but no remains of a Church’ (O’Flanagan 1930, vol. 2, 245 (92)). It is described by Carrigan (1905, vol. 4, 115-16) as being located, ‘in the Dobbin’s ancient territory of Lisnatawna. It is mentioned in the Red Book of Ossory, in a list of churches of about 1350, as the “Capella de Lessentane;” in another of 1351, as “Tainewyrghlan;” and in another of about 1500, as the “Ecclesia de Lyssyntan.” It has been entirely destroyed…The churchyard is covered all over with large rough stones, remains, no doubt, of the walls of the demolished church’. On the 1st (1839) ed. OS 6-inch map the church is shown as a rectangular structure (dims. c. 12m NE-SW; c. 7m NW-SE) indicated by a dashed line which suggests it was not upstanding, and it is annotated ‘Site of St. Kieran’s Church’, within a rectangular graveyard (KK029-027002-). On the 1900-01 revision the church is indicated with a cross and annotated, ‘St. Kieran’s Church (Site of)’ within a smaller unenclosed graveyard. The graveyard is heavily overgrown with scrub and trees. The church is not visible at ground level but there are a lot of stones strewn around the graveyard. Associated with the church is a bullaun stone (KK029-027003-) and pillar stone (KK029-027006-) within the graveyard and a stoup (KK029-027004-) in an adjacent garden. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 9 March 2022

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