Continued in this issue is the third extract from the O.S. letter of O'Donovan's dealing with Clonmacnoise.

(8).The eighth ruin is called Temple O'Conor. It is attached to the modern Protestant Church and does not appear very ancient.

I have no record whatever of the history of this Church, but I believe it is mentioned in the Registry of Clonmacnoise, of which Mr. Petrie has an abstract. This is called St. Kieran's Church in the Name Book but Patrick Molloy, the local historian, who has got a good, sound head of his own, and who seems to be a man of veracity, calls it Temple O'Conor.

Ware shews ten Churches on his map of the Cemetery of Clonmacnoise [ published in c.1657 ], but eight only remain to this day, that is , seven Churches and O'Rourke's (O'Malone's?) Tower, to which, it is probable, a Church was anciently, and to a comparatively recent period, attached.

At the year 947 and 977 reference is made in the Annals of the Four Masters to a Church called Eaclais Beg i.e., the Little Church, but I have not been able to identify it.

At the year 1060 reference is made to Cros-na-Screaptra, the Cross of Scriptures, which seems to have been a Church in the form of a cross, not identified. Molloy never heard of it.

At the year 1026 reference is made to a causeway or pavement extending from the Garden of the Abbess to the Carn of the Three Crosses.

This can still be traced; the carn has disappeared but the three crosses remain, two in good preservation but one mutilated.

At the year 1087 Mageoghegan (citante Archdall) records that:-

"The Abbot Connor Mac Connamboght did purchase for ever Isili Cieran or the Hospital of St. Kieran, from Donnell Mac Flayn O'Melaghlin, King of Meath."

Molloy never heard of a place at Clonmacnoise called Isill Chiarain. Is it possible that Mageoghegan is right in making Isill Cieran the Hospital (the teach n-aoidheadh) of Clonmacnoise? It is stated in the Book of Lecan that the great grandson of Maine, Prince of Teffia (in which territory Clonmacnoise was situated before the Dalcassian tribe, afterwards called Mac Coghlans, established the Territory of Delvin Eathra) granted Isil Chiarain for ever to God and Saint Kieran. And I always thought, and do still think, that Isil Chiarain was a tract of low-lying (Iseal) country belonging to Clonmacnoise. What could be the meaning of the Abbot of Clonmacnoise purchasing the Hospital of Clonmacnoise from the King of Meath? If the Book of Lecan be right, Isil Chiarain was mort-maine to the Abbey since the time of ? great grandson of Maine (600); how, then, could the King of Meath have any claim on it?

We have already seen that O'Kelly's Church occupied the site of the Teach n-Aoidheadh or Hospital of Clonmacnoise, but I do suspect that it is a blunder of Archdall's or Mageoghegan's to make Isiol Chiarain the same as the Hospital house of Clonmacnoise. Perhaps Mageoghegan wrote or intended to have written Isill Cieran or the Hospital lands of Clonmacnoise.

"I am wearied with conjectures."

At the years 1135 and 1205 reference is made in the Annals to Lios an Abbaidh, the Fort of the Abbot. This is most probably the fort within which the old Castle of Clonmacnoise stands, at least I do not see any other feature with which it could be at all identified.

"A.D. 1135. On Easterday in this year the Town of Clonmacnoise, with the Church of Moriegh O'Duffie and the place called Lisean Abbey, were all (both?) consumed by an accidental fire." - Mageoghegan.

"A.D. 1205. This year forty seven houses were destroyed by an accidental fire in the place called Lisean-Abbay in Clonmacnoise." - Mageoghegan.

Archdall states, on the authority of the Annals of the Island of All Saints, that a castle was erected by the English at Clonmacnoise in 1214. This castle is now to be seen in ruins within a kind of Dun or Rath, which I take to be the Lios an Abbaidh of the Annalists.

It would appear from passages in the Annals of the Four Masters and Mageoghegan's translation of the Annals of Clonmacnoise that a Nunnery was established here at an early period.

"A.D. 1026. The causeway from the Garden of the Abbess to the Carn of the Three Crosses in Clonmacnoise was made by (the Abbot) Breasnal Conaille." - 4 Masters.

"A.D. 1170. Dervorgilla, the daughter of Morogh O'Mealaghlin, King of Meath, and wife of Tiernan O'Roirk, repaired the Church of the Nunnery of Clonmacnoise." - Mageoghegan.
(Some blunder here by Archdall!!)

"A.D. 1180. The Church of the Nunnery of Clonmacnoise together with the houses in the Churchyard (Reileag Cailleach) were consumed by accidental fire." - Mageoghegan.

Molloy points out the ruins of this Nunnery to the northeast of the Cathedral; the clochan or paved way can be traced from one to the other, which is a curious corroboration of the Annals.

The other features, which ought to be marked on the map, are the two wells - Tober-Kieran and Tober Fineen, the one lying in a field to the left of the road as one goes from Shannon Bridge to Clonmacnoise, within about one eight mile of the latter, and the other lying on the brink of the Shannon, opposite Fineen's Tower and Church.

The Castle of Rachra, which is mentioned by the Four Masters at the year ? was situated on the east side of the Shannon, near the Bridge of Shannon Bridge, but not a trace (vestige) of it is now visible.

The other names of ancient features in this Parish will be found in the Field Name Books.