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Clonmacnois - The Churches.

written by the children of Clonown N.S., Athlone. 

Making the High Crosses   Field Trip to Clonmacnoise

    In Clonmacnoise there are seven churches (in fact people around here call it Seven Churches.) The names of the churches are: Temple Dowling, Temple Hurpan , Temple Ri , Temple Kieran , Temple Connor and the Nuns Church. There was also a Cathedral there. There are two round towers there as well. They are called O`Rourkes tower but there is no name for the other tower but it is built on to Temple Finghin.

        On the way into the Cathedral, there is an arch, This arch is known as the Whispering Arch because the monks held confessions there. A monk put his ear at the corner of the arch and the sinner talked into the corner of the other side of the arch. We tried it out and Emer whispered something but only I could hear what she said. It really worked!

  St. Ciaran`s church is in the middle of the old cemetery in Clonmacnois .It over looks the River Shannon. It is very small only 3.8 x 2.8 metres. It is in ruins. In this picture you can see thirty children in St Ciaran`s church. Some off them had to stay outside as they could not fit. As you can see in this picture the walls are falling in.This is because a story said that if you took the soil from St. Ciaran`s church and put in on the four corners of your field you would have good crops. Down through the years people did take a little soil to put on their fields and this is why the walls are falling in.

       Joy told us Ciaran died of the yellow plague which was going around Europe at the time. He was 33 and 7 months.The year was 549.

This is Ciaran and Diarmad putting down the first stake.It is shown on the Cross of the Scriptures. Diarmad was the king who gave Ciaran the land for the monastery. He gave to it him because Ciaran had predicted that Diarmad would shortly become king and he had. Ciaran brought a cow with him to the monastery.  It was a great cow and the monks wrote a book about it in the monastery called “The Book of the Dun Cow”. Another great book was written in the monastery called “The Annals of Clonmacnois”. This book has been re written and can be bought today. It is a very important book as it tells the story of Clonmacnois.