Monaincha Church

National Monument No. 125. A Hiberno-Romanesque church situated on a raised enclosure 1.2m above a partially enclosed island (TN018-001004-) known as 'Inis na mBeo' or 'Island of the Living' in Monaincha Bog. Another monastic island with a church site (TN017-019002-) is located c. 450m to the W. Possibly founded by the Augustinian canons around 1140 on the site of an earlier monastery (TN017-019002-, TN018-001005-) linked to St Canice of Aghaboe in the sixth century (Leask 1955, 129; Gleeson and Gwynn 1962, 53) and St Cronán in the seventh century (Gleeson and Gwynn 1962, 54). According to Gwynn and Hadcock (1970, 41) the church on this island was associated with St Hilaire/Hilary in or before the tenth century. The Augustinian regular canons arrived some time after 1140 and rebuilt the church of St Hilary, alias St Mary (ibid.). Around 1485 the Augustinians moved their priory to the nearby townland of Corbally (TN012-014----) (ibid.). In 1568 Monaincha was described as the island of the living consisting of two chapels and near the island a village called Corbally in which the prior and convent dwelt with a church formerly of the priory and parish (ibid., 167).

The church, orientated E-W, consists of a nave (ext. dims. 6.75m N-S; 11.6m E-W; wall T 0.87m) and chancel (ext. dims. 3.4m x 3.55m; wall T 0.52m) with priest's quarters (ext. dims. 8.66m x 6.6m) built onto the N wall of the nave. The nave is entered through a round-headed doorway with three square-sectioned orders surmounted by a large roll-mould over the doorhead and three-sided outer pilaster in the W gable. The doorway itself widens towards the base. The two inner orders on the N side have been mostly replaced by plain blocks, also the inner arch has plain blocks inserted. The orders are decorated with chevrons, scrollwork and roll-mouldings with pellets and floral patterns. On the S side of the doorway there is an inscription 'ORDOT... and O F' (Stout 1984, 93). Above this doorway there is a large round-headed embrasure with a cusped ogee-headed single-light window with hollow trefoil in external spandrel possibly of fifteenth/sixteenth-century date. There is an original twelfth-century window at the E end of the S wall of the nave consisting of a single round-headed light within a splayed round-headed embrasure. Two other windows in this E wall are of thirteenth-century date, however, the jambs of these windows are not properly aligned, suggesting that they were incorrectly reassembled at some later date, possibly during nineteenth-century refurbishment. Similarly the E window of the chancel is also of thirteenth-century date and appears to be re-inserted after rebuilding. In the S wall of the nave the thirteenth-century windows appear to have been two-lights though the central mullion and heads are missing. The cut-stone segmental-headed embrasure arch survives, as do the moulded embrasure jambs which consist of engaged columns surmounted by carved heads encompassed by leaf clusters springing from long stalks. The S wall of the chancel has a simple original round-headed single-light window set within a round-headed splayed embrasure. There is a small aumbry on either side of this window, the base of the aumbrys and window are defined by an internal string-course. The round-headed chancel arch is very ornate and consists of three round-sectioned orders. Both the shafts and bases are plain but the capitals are fluted. On the face and soffit of the first arch there are chevrons outlined with bead and fillet mouldings. In the spandrels there are stylised foliage patterns and simplified anthemions (Stout 1984, 94), the latter motif is repeated on the second arch which contains chevron and roll-mouldings. On the lowest arch stone on the N side there is an animal carved in relief which appears to be an elephant. There is another figure beside it but this is difficult to distinguish. Externally the church rests on a basal plinth (Wth 0.15m x H 0.19m H), however the S wall of the chancel stands on a double plinth and the N and E walls rest on a three-tiered plinth. Unusually there is an engaged column at the external NE, SW and SE angles of the chancel. There is no such column at the NW angle and it seems that the N wall and NE corner of the chancel have been completely rebuilt. This is further supported by the lack of an internal string-course on the N wall while one runs along from the S to the E wall. The engaged columns are quite eroded in places and some sections have been replaced by hexagonal pieces with pronounced pock-tooling, also square cap-stones and column bases have been inserted in NE and SE angles - these appear to be nineteenth or early twentieth-century inserts. Coping of the very steep pitched chancel roof is visible on the external E wall of the nave. The slope of this roof bears no relationship to the capitals of the engaged columns.

A pointed-doorway was inserted in the E end of the N wall of the nave to give access to the priest's quarters which were constructed in the fifteenth/sixteenth century. This doorway is a mixture of carved stones, including a reused round-sectioned engaged column as the W base, suggesting that the doorway was rebuilt more recently, perhaps in the nineteenth century. This doorway leads into a short lobby giving access to W to a mural stair rising to first-floor accommodation. A pointed doorway at ground-floor level, opposite the doorway in the nave, gives access to a barrel-vaulted chamber with three collapsed and rebuilt single-lights - at the N end of the W wall, in the N gable and at the S end of the E wall. Of the first-floor chamber only the N gable wall survives which contains a flat-headed window with jambs rebated internally and chamfered externally. The embrasure contains stone window seats.