Ruan Church

Situated within a graveyard (CL025-070002-) beside the RC church in Ruan village in a flat area with Port Hill rising to the S. The ruins of a late 15th-century church (int. dims. 17m E-W; 6m N-S; wall T 1m), known as Templemaraha, constructed of well-coursed limestone blocks with dressed quoins. All the church walls are base battered. A pointed doorway (Wth 1.15m; H 1.68m) in the S wall has a hanging eye on the W side and there is a damaged window embrasure towards the E end of the S wall. The E gable has a two-light ogee-headed window missing its central mullion and an aumbry almost at present ground level. Most of the N wall is reduced to a foundation course. A small chapel (int. dims. 8.55m N-S; 5.9m E-W) with much poorer stonework abuts the W end of the church to the S and obscures some of the stonework of the church doorway. There is a doorway (Wth 0.87m) in the E wall of the chapel and a gable in the S wall which has a slit window in a lintelled embrasure. Against the N wall of the chapel is a wall monument to Donogh O’Kerine dating to 1688 (CL025-070003-). Several possible 17th-century graveslabs (CL025-070004- and CL025-070007- to CL025-070019-), some with incised ringed crosses and some with plain crosses in high relief are lying recumbent within the church and another (CL025-070020-) lies within the graveyard. A large mausoleum built for the O’Loghlen family of north Clare lies to the N of the church. Ruan church is a national monument in State care, no. 17. (Westropp 1900-02, 142; Swinfen 1992, 112; Large 2010, 213-18)