Clontuskert Priory

In flat open farmland S of Ballinure River. A house of Augustinian canons, dedicated to St Mary, was founded here by the O'Kelly family 'some time after 1140' on the site of an early monastery (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 165). Excavated in 1971-2 (Fanning 1976), this recently conserved Nat. Mon. consists of the well-preserved remains of a 13th-16th-C church along with parts of the cloister and domestic ranges. The church comprises a nave (E-W; L 16.5m, Wth 8m) and chancel (L 16m, Wth 8m) with a transept at NW end. There is a highly decorated 15th-C doorway in W gable with a holy water font in its N jamb (Leask 1960b, 74-6, also 163, 181). A 17th-C wall separates the nave from the chancel, to W of which traces of an earlier rood screen survive. The chancel is dominated by the reconstructed 15th-C traceried window in E gable; itself a replacement of a 13th-C multiple lancet window of which only fragments survive. There is also a pair of slender round-headed single-light windows in S wall. A doorway at NE end of the chancel gave access to an adjoining rectangular building, probably a 13th-C 'sacristy or side-chapel', only the foundations of which survive (Fanning ibid., 110). Immediately to W of the latter is a later structure which is in turn abutted by E wall of the 16th-C transept. At its NE corner, this transept overlies the foundations of yet another rectangular building (E-W; L 9m, Wth 5m), interpreted as possibly a 'fifteenth-century chapel' or 'even ... an Early Christian church' (ibid., 112). The domestic buildings lay to S of the church, within the modern graveyard wall. At the centre was the cloister, but only the foundations of the cloister arcade (now partially reconstructed) and S and W ranges survive. However, a large section of the fabric of E range still stands. Originally of two storeys, it was much altered by refurbishment in the 17th C when an oven, fireplaces and chimney were inserted. A wayside cross (GA088-004----) and a holy well (GA088-002----) lie to SSW and SSE respectively, and a togher (GA088-014----) lies to NE. A field system (GA088-001002-) is also associated. There is a tradition that the togher lead from the priory to a medieval parish church (GA088-020001-).