St Brigid's Church

Situated within a subrectangular enclosure (CL029-009007-) c. 90m SW of the Round Tower (CL029-009010-) on Inis Cealtra (Holy Island) in Lough Derg. Named ‘St Michael’s Church and Garden’ on the 1840 OS 6-inch map, ‘Baptism Church’ on the 1920 OS 6-inch map and called ‘St Brigid’s church’ by Macalister (1916). A small, ruined, single-celled church (ext. dims. 8.5m by 5m) with a Romanesque doorway (Wth 0.7m; H 1.85m) at W. There are two deeply splayed windows one in the E wall and one on the S wall near the altar. The E window is widely splayed (Wth 0.72m; H 0.7m; sill H 1.2m) and has been robbed out. The window in the S wall also has a wide interior splay (Wth 0.92m; surviving H 0.8m; sill H 0.95m) and the window itself was 0.15m wide. Excavation took place here from 1970 to 1972 revealing much collapsed masonry. The roof was slated and there was evidence that slates, brought from elsewhere, were trimmed in situ. The church was built about the middle of the 12th century but was abandoned as a place of worship about the beginning of the 13th century. The interior of the church was used for burial, almost certainly in the 13th century and perhaps later, with at least twenty bodies being deposited, two of which were of women in childbirth. The burials were all extended, all but one lying E-W. The doorway and W gable had fallen by the early 19th century but these were rebuilt by the Board of Works in 1879-80 with some small irregularities. For a time in the 19th century the building was used to house animals. Iniscealtra is a national monument in state care, no. 5. (Macalister 1916-17, 119-22; De Paor 1970; 1971; 2013, 28, 31-6)