| Name: | Kirkinriola [Also: Kirkinriola] | CISP No: | KIOLA |
| Place: | Kirkinriola | Grid Ref: | D 1100 700 (IR)
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| Parish: | Lower Toome | Stones: | 1 |
| County: | Antrim (Aontroim) , Ireland | Saint(s): | none |
| Site Type: | ecclesiastical |
Petrie/1878, 73: `The name of this place is incorrectly given in the Ordinance Survey as Kirkinriola. It is situated in the townland and parish of the same name, in the county of Antrim. Its northern extremity is bounded by Clough Water, anciently the Ravel.
Mr. Hennessy is of the opinion that the name owes its origin to some ecclesiastic, and that it was Cell Con Riagla, i.e. the church of Cu-Riagla. Mac Regol is well known as the name of the scribe and abbot whose manuscript copy of the Gospels is now preserved in the Bodleian Library.
The ruins of an old church, measuring fifty-two feet by eighteen feet ten inches in the clear, occupy a place in the original churchyard, and the only monument found here was a tomb bearing the following inscription. From the silence concerning Kilconriola in the early authorities, Dr. Reeves was disposed to regard the church and churchyard as possessing no great claim to antiquity...The discovery, however, of the inscribed stone described below proves that the cemetery is a very ancient one. The stone...was found in the levelling of an earthen ditch, which formed part of the enclosure of the graveyard'.
Macalister/1949, 112: `the old church of Kirkinriola'.
Hamlin/2001, 54: `Kirkinriola (formerly Kilconriola) is not documented in early written sources, but several strands of evidence suggest that it was an early church site. The place-name was originally a cell form (from Latin cella); a souterrain runs under the graveyard; and an early ecclesiastical bell from Cabragh may have come from the site. These factors and the inscribed slab all point to early activity at Kirkinriola'.