Site: Church Island, Old Graveyard

Name:Church Island, Old Graveyard (Na Tearmainn) CISP No:LCURN
Place:Loch Currane Grid Ref:V 532 668 (IR)   Map
Parish:Iveragh Stones:2
County:Kerry (Ciarraí) , Ireland Saint(s):Finan Cam
Site Type:ecclesiastical

Site Notes

Macalister/1949, 97: `in the old graveyard of Church Island, Loch Currane'.

O'Sullivan/Sheehan/1996, 316--317: `This large, flat island is located towards the N end of Lough Currane...it is associated with St Finan Cam who is reputed to have founded a monastery on it in the sixth century'.

Okasha/Forsyth/2001, 144--145: `Church Island is located at the north end of Lough Currane. According to tradition, St Finan Cam founded a monastery on the island in the sixth century ... but there are no structural remains that certainly date from the early Christian period. ... The existing remains include the foundations of various houses, some of modern date, and, at the north end of the island, St Finan's cell. At the east end of the island are the ruins of St Finan's church, the earliest parts of which probably date from the twelfth century .. There are also three examples of a leacht, three pillar stones and some fragments of Romanesque architectural sculpture. Altogether eleven cross-slabs, including the two inscribed ones, are preserved on the island, the greatest concentration in the Iveragh peninsula. ... Art-historical parallels suggest that most of the extant slabs date from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The late date of this `impressive' group led Sheehan to suggest that `the floruit of Church Island as one of the major ecclesiastical centres of Iveragh lay towards the end of the Early Historic period and culminated, perhaps, with the erection of its impressive Romanesuqe church in the twelfth century''.

References

Stones