Inishmurray Island Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Site

This church, traditionally known as ‘Templemolaise’ or ‘Teampall na bFear’ (the men’s church), is located in the E half of an ecclesiastical enclosure (SL011-011001-), known as ‘The Cashel’.

The principal church within the Cashel occupies the large open space in which the cemetery (001-001-029-) (north of the church) and freestanding leachta (SL001-001013-; SL001-001019-; SL001-001021-) are also found. It is a single-cell pre-Romanesque church with antae at the east end (i.e. squared pilasters on the angles formed by an extension of the side walls past the end gable), a single west doorway and a round-headed east window. The building measures 7.73 m long by 3.55 m wide, within walls about 0.7 m thick. The building is oriented at 93 degrees. The interior is level and bare, with modern gravel throughout.

The masonry is mortared random rubble of mainly small to large and a few massive sandstone blocks (maximum 1.68 m by 0.37 m), with different sizes often mixed indiscriminately. Rough coursing is evident in places. Some blocks are quite well fitted, with moderate spalls, and very little visible mortar. The blocks are slightly smaller, on average, at the interior, and there is a line of uprights visible at the base of the interior.

The doorway in the west gable is of trabeate form (i.e.with a flat lintel). It is 1.56 m high with jambs that batter from 0.64 m wide at the base to 0.54 m at the top. The jamb stones are mainly large sandstone blocks, moderately well fitted, and rough punch dressing is visible in places. In each jamb one block spans the thickness of the wall. On the north side this block features a small semi-circular hole in its east side.

The round-headed east window was probably rebuilt by the Board of Works in 1880. It has three monolithic lintels and there is a stone setting between two of these. The lintels splay unevenly to the interior, and the exterior one, which is of coarser stone than the rest, also splays outwards slightly near its exterior edge. It is not clear whether the jambs were battered originally, but the ope now measures 0.64 m by 0.39 m. There are three steps in the embrasure and quite rough punch-dressing is visible on many of the surround stones. On the soffit of the outer lintel is a deep hole – 0.025 m wide and 0.02m deep – for hanging a shutter on its north side. There is a corresponding hollow on its south side – 0.05 m wide and 0.04 m deep. The soffit is rebated exterior to the hole, suggesting that the shutter opened inwards. Poor refitting means that the stump of a metal rivet is visible on the underside of the lintel. It probably served to secure the shutter to the south jamb.

The antae survive only at the east end. The southern one is.0.7 m wide by 0.2 m deep. The northern one is deeper, irregular in plan, and its blocks are not as well fitted. It was probably entirely rebuilt by the Board of Works in 1880, but note that no antae are shown at the west end in a drawing made in the 1790s by Angelo Bigari in the course of his sketching tour of Connaught with Gabriel Beranger.

There is a variety of evidence that the church was extended westwards: the absence of antae at this end, the slightly off-centre position of the doorway, and the unusually long proportions of the building (2:1).

A mortar sample from the building yielded a radiocarbon date of cal AD 800–1150 at two sigma probability (Berger 1992, 884) and cal AD 660–980 at one sigma (Berger 1995, 172). As the sample was taken from the west wall, the date may relate to the second phase of the building.

A stone trough (SL001-001010-), two cross-inscribed pillars (SL001-001023-; SL001-001026-), an inscribed pillar (SL001-001024-) and a bullaun stone (SL001-001034-) are located adjacent to the W end of the church, and there is a leacht (SL001-001021-) a few meters to E of the church.