Kilshanny Abbey

On a low but prominent rise in rolling pasture and marshy scrub, within a graveyard (CL015-027002-). Indicated and named ‘Kilshanny Church (in ruins)’ on the 1840 and 1916 OS 6-inch maps. A church is said to have been founded in Kilshanny by the 7th-century St Cuana, who Westropp (1900, 280) suggests can be identified with Mochonna of Feakle and Kilquane. While early scholars (Frost 1893, 109; Westropp 1900-1902, 136) asserted that it was a daughterhouse of the Cistercian abbey of Corcomroe, Mac Mahon (1990, 28) has established that the connection with the Cistercians is spurious and that the site is an Augustinian foundation. He traces its connection to the Augustinians with a grant of land in 1189 by King Donal Mór O’Brien to the Augustinian canons at Clareabbey (ibid.). Kilshanny was dedicated to Our Lady and St. Augustine (Mac Mahon 1993). In 1273 the abbot of Kilshanny, Florence O’Tighearnaigh, became Bishop of Kilfenora (Gwynne and Hadcock 1970, 184; Swinfen 1992, 82). The church is listed in the Ecclesiastical Taxation lists 1302-7 (Mac Mahon 2018), where it was valued at 26s 8d. At the dissolution of the monasteries Kilshanny was granted to Murrough O’Brien, first Earl of Thomond (Mac Mahon 1990, 29) and the site remained within various branches throughout the 17th and 18th centuries (ibid.). In 1621 Dermot O’Brien, 5th baron Inchiquin, made a grant to ‘Honora Ni Brien alias Wingfield’ of Smithstown of ‘the abbey and cloister of Kilshanny, with the old ruinous walls sometimes called the abbot’s house and the precincts and circuit of the abbey’ (Ainsworth 1961, 329-30), indicating the presence of additional buildings at the site up until at least the early 17th century.

A rectangular church (int. dims. 23.05m ESE-WNW; 6.3m NNE-SSW) built of randomly coursed and mortared limestone rubble with stressed quoins. The walls (T 0.80m) survive to their original height (side-walls est. H 4.5m; gables est. H 7m). There are two doorways in the N wall and a third in the W wall. The W doorway in the N wall (Wth 1.14-1.2m; H 2.25m) has a W cut-stone jamb with a bar-hole slot. The remainder of the doorway is built from undressed limestone rubble and it is headed with a roughly built round arch. The E doorway in the N wall (H 1.72m; Wth 0.8m) has a cut-stone round-headed arch and is set within an internal cut-stone round-headed embrasure (H 2.25m; int. Wth 1.59m). Corbels in the door jambs suggest the former presence of tympanum and bar-slot is present in the W door jamb. The doorway in the W gable has a pointed cut-stone arch (ext. H 1.74m; ext. Wth 1.02m; int. H 1.94m; ext. Wth 1.2m) with chamfered jambs, bar-slots, and a hanging eye above the W jamb. It is set within a flat-arched embrasure.

The E gable contains a nearly centrally placed three-light switch-line tracery window with an external hood moulding, repaired mullions and a broken sill. There are two windows in the S wall. Toward the E end of the S wall is a triple-light ogee-headed window with a square hood-moulding set within a round-headed window embrasure (Wth 1.5m; H 2.5m). The mullions are missing and only two spandrels remain in-situ. The embrasure is partly blocked by stone rubble on the interior. In the centre of the S wall a small single-light lancet window is set within a deep widely spaced embrasure (Wth 0.74m; H 1.85m) and is partly ivy covered. A fourth window found centrally placed at first-floor level in the W wall has a round-headed single-light with an ogee-headed exterior with decorated spandrels.

In the N wall, E of the E door is a wide shallow arched recess (Wth 2.6m; max. H 1.65m) of undressed limestone blocks containing an early 18th-century Thynne family chest tomb (Wth 2.6m; H 0.75m) (Westropp 1897, 397). The remains of a stone altar are present beneath the E window. In the S corner of the E wall is a round-arched aumbry (Wth 0.8m; H 1.65m) with a chamfered cut-stone surround. A second rectangular aumbry (Wth 0.35m; H 0.4m) is found at ground level at the E end of the S wall. Indefinite traces of the cloister are visible to the exterior near the NE doorway and McMahon (2018, 29) reported that wall footings are frequently encountered in the area during grave digging. In 1900 Westropp reported ‘the graveyard is full of shafts, portions of window-heads, &c., apparently more numerous that would be needed to complete the windows of the church’ (281), suggesting architectural fragments from the cloister and other monastic buildings. The interior of the church is clear of excess growth and filled with ledger slabs and headstones. St Augustine’s Well (CL015-028----) is c. 170m to the NE.