Chapter 5: Coill Beag to Inis Uí Chuinn

• Parish of Cairrgín
  
• Cahergal Fort
  
• Killursa
  
• Coill Bheag to Inis Uí Chuinn
  
• [no title]
  
• Rosserilly
  
• Shrule
  

Here, as elsewhere throughout Ireland, the ruins are grouped with others of different eras and uses. A little to the east of the old castle there are the vestiges of the church and burial ground of St. Cróinín; and a short distance to the north-east there of a considerable cairn, which may be seen from the lake, crowns an eminence in a neighbouring field; while, following the inland road, we soon arrive at Dúnáin Fort and Eidhneach graveyard, in the townland of Carrowakil, on the south of the road opposite which there is one of those early Pagan structures known as "giants' graves," and here significantly called by the people Leaba'n Fhir Mhóir,--the bed or "grave of the big man." The fort has recently been in great part obliterated, although a few of the large flagstones are still standing; and, as it is asserted that human bones of large dimensions were found in it, I may here remark that no human bones of a gigantic size were ever found in an Irish burial place, either ancient or modern.The Leaba crowns a little mammillary elevation, and consists of an oblong enclosure, running nearly east and west, and having at the eastern end several of the large upright flagstones still remaining.These "giants' graves" are not uncommon, although not of such frequent occurrence as the stone circles, the inner enclosure of which originally supported the hive-shaped domes.

Passing beside Clover Hill in an easterly direction, by St. Ciarán's Well, and through a group of ancient forts and raths, we reach the extensive graveyard and ruined church of Killursa, erroneously styled on the Ordnance Map Kildaree, from the neighbouring townland of that name, although O Donovan, in his letters, has given a distinct description of it, as well as a drawing of the western doorway, which forms a remarkable feature of this ruin.All the walls are still standing, although considerably dilapidated; it was of the Daimhliag mór class of church, and measures seventy feet six inches, by twenty-four feet on the outside.The southern doorway is a pointed arch; and the east window, which, compared with the extent of the building, is of unusual height was a fine specimen of pointed Gothic architecture, and was probably erected in the sixteenth century; it is eleven feet six inches high, and three feet four inches in the clear. The well-cut stone mullions still remain; but the outer spaces were built up years ago, when, perhaps, the poverty or persecution of the parishioners prevented its repair.A cross wall cuts off nine feet four inches of the western end, which portion was probably occupied in later times by the officiating priest or friar.A similar wall exists in the little church of Ross Hill, at Loch Measca.

The characteristic feature of this church is the small square-headed sloping-jambed doorway, near the southem angle of the western gable, of the great antiquity of which there can be no doubt; and which is probably a remnant of the early church founded here by St. Fursa, when disgusted with the state of affairs at Inchiquin, he came over to the mainland, and established a religious house in this parish.The dimensions of this doorway are--five feet four inches in height, two feet wide at top, and two feet five inches at the bottom.Nearly all the stones of its sides occupy the entire thickness of the wall, which here measures two feet, and are undressed on the ends; but upon the inside they are all perfectly smooth, as if they had been first put in their places in a rough state, and were then sawn or rubbed down into their present condition.The lintel, which is a rough, unhewn, weather-worn flag, three feet eight inches long, does not appear to have been part of the original structure, and is quite incongruous with the rest of the doorway, in openings of which class the lintel is generally of great size and thickness.The probability is that, in the original church, the doorway stood in the centre of the west gable; and that when, in the process of centuries, the present church was reconstructed on the site of the old, it was enlarged towards the north, as well as in length, the doorway being left in situ, and the present lintel placed upon it.

These square-headed, so-called Cyclopean doorways, with sloping sides, are characteristic of our very early Irish churches; although, as in the case of that at Inishmain on Loch Measca, they are occasionally associated with the florid architecture of a much more recent period, and evidently of foreign introduction.They abound in the Loch Coirib district, as at Cill Chathail, below Cnoc na dTuagh,[fn48-1] Cill Fraochán, Inis Meadhon, Ross Hill, Inis a'Ghaill, and Cill Aithnín.