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Irish Forgotten Places, 67 Castle Dawson, Maynooth (2026)

04/11/2026

Seapoint, now a popular bathing place on Dublin Bay, was once a deserted and rugged shore suited to seabirds and hermits.
Tobernea Terrace, a row of grand 4-storey Victorian houses, stands near the hermit’s well from which it got its name, Tobar Naithi (Naithi’s Well). 6th century Naithi lived a few miles inland at more accessible Taney, Tigh Naithi ( ‘House of Naithi’) but regularly withdrew to rocky Seapoint to focus on his priorities.
I had often passed the terrace in my youth and wondered at its strange name. I never saw it as my local ‘Holy Well’ and only recently I discovered its connection with Taney.
Recent efforts to find Naithi’s well at Tobernea Terrace failed because it is hidden away among bushes in a ‘Keep Out’ locked compound. Taney was more rewarding as his ‘house’ there is inside a graveyard and open to the public.
In Naithi’s time Taney was just a roadside stop south of Dublin. Now it is almost a suburb and the graveyard a record of how it developed.
Two Rathdown Slabs recall the Viking-Christian era of a thousand years ago.
The church (now COI) is still called St Naithi’s. It shelters the baptismal font of the Duke of Wellington and tapestries of the Last Supper made by two Yeats sisters, Lilly and Lolly, both of whom are buried there.
The Asylum Plot near the entrance gates was once used for patients of the Dundrum Central Mental Hospital. A back gate was originally an entrance for Catholics attending funerals at a time when they were barred from entering the main gates of a Protestant church.
Among the 10,000 buried there are Protestants and Catholics, Republicans and Government officials.
Republican graves include those of Lorcain McSuibhne, a member of the Irish Republican Army killed in 1922 and James Burke, killed in Croke Park on Bloody Sunday.
Sgt William Anthony Kavanagh, RAF Volunteer Reserve, age 24, died 23 Sep 1944 as a result of a cycling accident while home on holiday. Lying nearby is the Irish physicist George Johnstone Stoney who died in London in 1911. His ashes were brought back to be with his wife, mother and sister.
What can be found at Taney today could be called Naithi’s heritage but he himself is very much in the background. He is even confused with a saint of the same name in Sligo. However Tobernea and Taney are convincing evidence of his life in south Dublin.
If Taney reveals his legacy, Tobernea is a reminded of what he was about.
Photos: Seapoint today, the Terrace, ‘Keep Out’ welcome to the Well.

28/10/2026

Around 600 AD when St Marnock was rowing his ‘little boat’ (see earlier post) from Lambay Island to what is now Portmarnock, St Begnet on the other side of Dublin Bay was rowing her boat to and from Dalkey.
She had a hermitage on the island and an outpost on the mainland. Traces of both remain.
But who was she? Some accounts confuse her with St Bega who fled Ireland to escape marriage to the King of Norway and founded communities of dedicated women in Northumbria. There she is also known as St Bee.
However Bega’s detailed biography, written in Britain, has no mention of Dalkey where Begnet left lasting memories.
Having a hermitage on an island and an outpost on the mainland was not unusual at that time.
The search of the ‘Desert Fathers and Mothers’ (of whom she was a follower) was easier to achieve alone on an island (the closest the Irish had to a desert) while a hut on the mainland within rowing distance kept her involved in society (an Irish characteristic).
Her unusual life style attracted the curious and the island soon became a popular place of pilgrimage. First known as ‘St Begnet's Isle’ (and Dalkey as Kilbegnet or ‘Begnet’s Cell’), it appears as such on a map painted on the wall of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence around 1560. The earliest reference to ‘Dalkey Island’ as such is not till 1782.
Begnet’s mainland lodgings are easy to visit as they are in the middle of Dalkey Town, next to the Heritage Centre in a castle. The display has interesting details of Dalkey’s later history but little on Begnet or why she came there in the first place.
There are clues on the island but you need a boat to get there. The distance seems short but the current is strong and dangerous.
This uninhabited and unsheltered oval island covers 25 rocky acres and its paths are seasonal. On the northern side you can find traces of a pre-historic promontory fort and to the south a Martello Tower and gun emplacements, defences again a possible French invasion in the early 19th century.
It is easy to bypass the centrepiece, St Begnet’s church surrounded by thorny furze. It was built in stone in the 9th century to replace an earlier timber structure. Nearby is an almost invisible Holy Well to which sailors went for a cure from scurvy.
Despite its nearness to the mainland you can be absorbed in the silence and scenery. It is easy to forget Begnet. Yet for centuries it was her island and pilgrims came from afar In her name.

Photos: The island, Dalkey Castle, inside her Dalkey church.

21/10/2026

Killiney is noted for its millionaire residents with their front-seat view over Ireland’s ‘Bay of Naples’. However long before U2’s Bono, The Edge, Enya and Van Morrison bought homes there it was known as Cill Inion Leinin, the monastic ‘Cell of the Daughters of Leinin’.
There were seven of them: Aiglenn, Macha, Luiden, Druiden, Luicill, Bimtach and Briga. Their father was a local chieftain and on becoming Christians his daughters formed a ‘Desert Fathers and Mothers’ community to further their search. They lived in beehive-shaped cells on a gorse and boulders covered Killiney Hill, coming together for a meal, study and reciting the Psalms. Gradually others joined them in their spiritual journey but you can see from the site today that the community was never large.
George Petrie, the famous antiquarian of early Victorian Ireland, called what remained on the site in his time ‘a ruin in perfection’ and expressed a wish to be buried there. Since he was familiar with more Irish ruins than most this was quite a compliment. (However he was buried in Mount Jerome cemetery in 1866.)
In Petrie’s time the prospering classes in Dublin were discovering the fresh sea and mountain air of nearby Killiney and began building ‘handsome and commodious villa residences’ on the hillside. Their genteel lifestyle barely disturbed the peace once enjoyed by Leinin’s daughters.
Today a warren of semi-private laneways lead to gated driveways and I had to work my way through them to find where the sisters had lived. Like the grand houses around them their ‘residence’ is now securely guarded by locked gates. I could see well-tended graves inside and the ruins of a 12th century church on which preservation work had recently been completed.
On the barred gate was an invitation to an ecumenical memorial service the following day (a Sunday). There would be a blessing of the graves, a talk on the ‘Historical Perspective’, music with ‘The Cill Inion Leinin Singers’ and Refreshments.
It seemed right that the daughters of the local chieftain would invite neighbours for an annual cup of tea.
I went on to the nearby parish church, a few minutes away, to see the stained glass window in which two of the sisters, Macha and Luiden, are represented. The intention was good but their appearance and clothes are obviously from a much later era. (The church was built in the 1850s and the stained glass came from France.)
Its a reminder of how little we know of how the Irish of the 6th or 7th centuries looked or dressed. However now more information is available on the Christianity that attracted the Irish of that time and how it developed a distinctly Celtic (or Gaelic) shape. The seven ladies on Killiney Hill probably never thought of themselves as trendsetters.

14/10/2026

This year Mayo stole the headlines by escaping the ‘curse’ that prevented them winning the All Ireland Football Championship for 75 years despite having some very good teams.
However they were not the first in Ireland to be ‘cursed’ to sporting disappointment.
In the early 600s the pioneering St Cronan of Roscrea and a group of followers came by river to boggy Lusmagh in Offaly. There was no one around where they landed so they tied up their boat and went searching. Some local people came across the boat and suspected the worst. Unannounced intruders were usually robbers. They chopped up Cronan's boat and used it for firewood.
When Cronan returned for the boat he was outraged. He cursed the people of Lusmagh and said they would never again win a hurling championship.
That ‘curse’ did not relent until 1989 when they won their one and only senior county title by one point.
However the Lusmagh people did not take it personally. Originally the parish was named Cill Mochonna (the Church of Mochonna) in honour of a little known saint but today the local church and school are happy to have Cronan as their patron.

Cronan must have stayed for a\ whle in Lusmagh. It is said he was a cousin of Mochonna and there are stories of ‘holy men’ visiting him there. A connection with the historic ‘Book of Dimma’ (now in Trinity College) is also claimed. Under Cronan’s direction it said to have been completed in 40 days, non-stop.

I spent some time at Lusmagh crossroads waiting to see if someone would appear who could guide me to traces of Mochonna or Cronan. When no one came I finally left my car there and set off in the direction of Cloghan Castle, said to stand on the original site of Mochonna’s foundation. I hoped no one would set the car alight in my absence as had happened to Cronan.

It was not far to the entrance of the Castle but the gates were firmly locked. Tall trees and a long driveway blocked sight of any building. Normans built the castle in 1203 and it is said to still be in good shape though not occupied.

I went on to nearby Kilmochonna (Cell of Mochonna) which despite its promising name is a functioning graveyard with the ruins of a church. There was no information board.

I left Lusmagh happy that my car had not been set alight in my absence and wishing them success in the Championship.
Photos: The Crossroads Signpost; Kilmochonna Cemetery; St Cronan (and St Brendan) in the local church.

30/09/2026

If I was going to live as a hermit I would be happy to build my cell next to the Velvet Strand at Portmarnock.
According to local lore, ‘There was a great saint named Marnóg living on Lambay Island. He had a little boat and he used to come over to where is now called Portmarnock. He had a little place for landing and the people called it Port’.
Lambay is now privately owned by the Baring bank family but much earlier St Columcille set up a monastic community there. Marnog (or Marnock) died in 625, 28 years after Columcille so maybe he had been a disciple. In the 16th Century his revered remains were disinterred and transferred to a specially-constructed chapel in St. Mary’s Abbey, Dublin.
The site of Marnock’s church is just off the beach but many nearby residents probably don’t know it exists. (I lived in the area for ten years without being aware of it.)
What remains is the remarkably large ruins of a 12th century church with great views over a golf course, the Velvet Strand and Lambay Island. Up to recently there also were a Holy Well and an Ogham Stone but they have disappeared. It is still a place to be and enjoy.
The Ogham Stone indicated an early date for the site and the well was a reminder that while ‘clerics of the desert’ like Marnock based their lives on following the Scriptural path they had no problem combining this with their ancestors’ reverence for the sacred in water and trees.
As usual locals wanted their dead to be buried in such surroundings and the relatively good state of the ruins may be because they include the grave of a member of the powerful Plunkett family.
In the 1930s the silence of Marnock’s Velvet Strand was disturbed. Its long stretch of firm sand served as the runway for two historic pioneering transatlantic flights.
The Australian Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew departed from there in the ‘Southern Cross’ tri-motor aircraft to complete a historic westbound transatlantic crossing to Newfoundland, Canada, and onwards to complete a round-the-world journey.
In 1932 the British pilot Jim Mollison took off from the same beach in a de Havilland Puss Moth named ‘Heart's Content’ to achieve the first solo westbound transatlantic flight, landing in New Brunswick, Canada.
Yet much remains of what attracted Marnock when he arrived on his ‘little boat’.
Does anyone know anything more about him? His name in Irish is ‘Mo-Ernin-Occ’, literally ‘Our Dear Ernin’ (the ‘mo-‘ being an affectionate term in the name of many early Irish saints).

Photos: The church above the beach; nearby Lambay Island; the Velvet Strand, the first Dublin Airport.

23/09/2026

AI informed me that there is a ruined medieval church at Cloney Graveyard in Kildare that had lost nearly all of its walls, leaving only a solitary stone doorway standing upright.
Further search told me that the doorway was a ‘Two-centred arch, formed from two stones curving to meet at a gentle point in a form commonly associated with Gothic ecclesiastical building in Ireland. Its survival here is quite remarkable given how little of the surrounding structure remains.’
I went to see it before it too disappeared. I was too late.
First I had to find the place. Some locals had never heard of it but two farmers who knew gave me instructions to turn left, then right, then left. That did not help. One of them saw me still searching and led me to the place. Part of the problem was that it was inside a farmyard.
Those who had seen it before me noted a curious D-shaped enclosure, typical of early Irish monasteries and indicating it once was more than a graveyard. All that remained for me to see was a raised area with graves, some recently tended. There was also a plastic chair where you could sit and wonder where the arch had been.
The first to live there was Baodan, a Kerry man with links to early monastic foundations in Wicklow, Glendalough and Dublin. He was one of the early pioneers, setting up communities in rural Leinster. The Annals note that he died in the presence of St Cronan of Roscrea at Lusmagh around 630.
A church obviously survived at Cloney (until recently) despite the presence of Vikings in the neighbourhood. In 837 the Vikings started moving up the rivers of Ireland and the Barrow (Ireland’s second longest river) proved a convenient passageway into the island’s heartland.
To extend their raiding season they built Longport bases from 844 and one of the few inland examples is at Dunrally on the Barrow just beside Cloney. In 860 the Longport was destroyed by Dinnediadh, the local Irish King, but Viking raids on the river continued into the following century.
We do not know how Coney managed to survive or why it was finally abandoned. A grave marker there dates from the 18th century. It seems the arched doorway had survived until recently.
Does anyone know why Cloney arch suddenly disappeared?
In its heyday, and even in its ruined state, it was a doorway into what makes us who we are today.
Photos: The raised mound, near where the Vikings landed, a modern touch.

16/09/2026

Kilberry near Athy is between the Bog of Allen and the River Barrow but you could pass through without seeing either or even noticing Kilberry itself.
There is no pub, shop or cafe. Its history is in its fields and in one of those is old Kilberry church, more imposing than you might expect.
What caught my eye was its tall and sturdy tower. Obviously intended for more than a bell. What is its story?
All that is recorded of Baire who gives Kilberry (‘Cell of Baire’) its name is that he died around the year 630. Anything he built is long gone.
The tower is a clue to what happened later. The ruin is from an abbey of the Knights Hospitallers (of Crusades fame) built on Baire’s site. Because of their Norman origins part of their role in Ireland was to help protect the Pale around Dublin. Hence strong walls and a tower.
However Kilberry is unusual. In an 1837 Ordinance Survey map it is marked as a ‘nunnery’. Had the Hospitallers female as well as male members?
The Hospitallers were founded during the Crusades and invited women to join in taking care of the sick and wounded. The women had their own ‘nunnery’ some distance from the men to avoid any improper mixing. Those involved, both men and women, would have been of Norman descent.
Kilberry is the first example of such a ‘nunnery’ I had seen in Ireland.
From the time of St Brigid communities of women dedicated to personal improvement and service to others were not uncommon in Ireland. They were also spiritual guides and educated foster children of promise. This tradition continued until the Normans came with more strictly regulated and structured Orders. The new monastic style gradually replaced the old Irish way in the name of progress and ‘reform’.
Today Kilberry is more known for its bogs. In 1947 a Peat Moss Factory was opened there to allow commercial activity in the bog to continue but environmental protests limited its use and its car park-sized loading areas are now empty. On the plus side the bog is now a popular habitat for wintering birds.
Now you can pass through Kilberry without noticing it. A revered hermit, Knight Hospitallers (women and men) and a peat industry have come and gone. Only its name remains unchanged, echoing part of our national story.

09/09/2026

Two men put Prosperous (in Kildare) on the map but they seem to have been forgotten.
The name of the town is itself unusual. Unlike other places in Ireland where names go back to an early saint, Prosperous got its name from Industrial Age optimism.
Robert Brooke, born in Cavan, entered the service of the East India Company in 1764 as a cadet aged 20. He rose in rank during the Mahratta Wars but bad health forced him to return to Ireland in 1775.
Back on his estate in Kildare he was inspired by the Manchester manufacturing revolution to transform his part of Ireland into a factory town. Despite a lack of business and cotton experience he optimistically named it ’Prosperous’.
By 1783 there were 200 houses there and a work force of 5000. Suddenly he was Ireland’s largest cotton manufacturer. Eventually poor management and heavy debts caught up with him. In 1786 he was forced to hand over control to trustees and returned to serve the East India Company. He became Governor of St Helena and later in South Africa fought the Dutch. He retired to Bath where he died in 1811.
The town survived and was important enough to be garrisoned with British military. This ended in 1798 when a United Irishmen force attacked the town in the ‘Battle of Prosperous’. It is one of the few victories for the rebels.
A report in 1837 described Prosperous as ‘Little more than a pile of ruins in a low marshy spot surrounded by bogs’.
In today’s reviving Prosperous I could find no statue or public acknowledgement of Sir Robert Brooke. I had similar difficulty tracing an earlier man who had made an impression there long before there was a town.
His name was Farnan. It is said he was the son of Aengus who came from Scotland. That would mean he was from the pioneering era when fellow-Celts came across the water to revolutionise the Irish world view.
The most popular story about Farnan is associated with his well which people still visit. It is said that those who have a strong attachment to alcohol would lose it after drinking the well water. Some wonder if this says something about the saint himself.
If St Farnan is remembered today in Prosperous it is because of the well. The ancient cemetery beside it has the typical circular walls of a monastic enclosure and early Christian cross slabs have been found there. It is even considered one of the best surviving examples of an early Christian establishment in Kildare. I spent most of an hour looking for an entrance or even getting a glimpse of it. It is securely fenced in and open to the public only on the Pattern Day, 12 June.
Today Prosperous is reviving as Dublin reaches out into the countryside. Its broad and long main street is unusually quiet and hints of better days. There are few shops and the older houses look like working-class homes rather than the residences of bankers or administrators. The only reference to Farnan in the town is his name on the local Post-primary School.
The soldier and industrialist Sir Robert Brooke and St Farnan of Scottish descent both had plans for transforming the Prosperous area. Did I miss any appreciation of their efforts there?

02/09/2026

It is not often that I go to a 5-Star Golf Resort like Kilkea Castle to find a 5th century Irish saint.
However the name Kilkea shows the place was first occupied by St Kea (‘Cell of Kea’). The Castle part is a reminder that it was a stronghold of the Fitzgeralds who ‘ruled’ Ireland on behalf of the English Crown for over 350 years.
Like a number of ‘more Irish than the Irish’ Norman-Irish families the Fitzgeralds survived the ups-and-down of history by managing to serve two traditions, the British and the Irish.
They sided with the British Crown in major conflicts until their temporary head, young Silken Thomas, rushed into a rebellion against Henry Vlll in 1534 and lost nearly all they owned.
They eventually recovered and in the 17th century British Civil War sided with the king, Charles l. The Irish were also part of the Confederation of Kilkenny and Kilkea Castle hosted the Papal Legate Archbishop Rincuccini when he was encouraging the Irish parties to continue their struggle.
The widow of the 14th Earl of Kildare (a Fitzgerald) leased Kilkea Castle to the Jesuits in 1634 and their base was there until 1646 when the tides of war changed.
Today as you enter the castle grounds you are greeted by a statue of St Kea, carved from a tree trunk. He has not been completely forgotten.
The Fitzgeralds turned St Kea’s church there into their family burial place and their graves survive among the ruins, within chipping range of the golf course.
St Kea is more correctly known as Caoidh but it was easier to pronounce as Kea or Kay. He is also associated with Inishbeg in Wexford harbour and Donadea church (in my local Donadea Forest Park). Living around the time of St Patrick, he was one of the pioneers who moved around, setting up small outpost of Christianity across the country.
Like many of the great Irish landlords the social power of the Fitzgeralds declined in the 19th century and they had to sell their estates. Interesting, their two main centres, Maynooth and Kilkea, both retain their ‘nobility’ as 5-star golf resorts.
The Old Cemetery at Kilkea is a jumble of walls and graves, hidden by trees.
Nearby the wooden statue of a rugged St Kea continues to greet guests. Arriving golfers may wondered how he managed to have gained entrance.

Photos: St Kea, the Castle, the church and graves.

26/08/2026

When I read how Samthann of Clonbroney responded to Maelruan, the up-coming star of Tallaght Monastery, I had to see the place where she lived.
The story is recorded in the 8th century manuscript, ‘The Monastery of Tallaght’, Maelruan’s base. Here is a transliteration.
There was a monk in Munster in the time of Samthann who carried greetings from her to the ‘Sons of Life’ (Celi De followers) in the country. Once she called him to carry a message and bound him not to change the wording in any way.
‘Say to Maelruan,’ she said, ‘that I have the greatest respect for him among the “clerics of the Desert” (ie in the Desert Fathers and Mothers’ tradition) and ask him whether he accepts women as soul–friends.’
(A soul-friend or anam cara in the Celtic tradition is a religious companion who understands you completely, supports your spiritual growth and accepts you as you are.)
The monk took the message to Maelruan and when he heard Samthann’s high opinion of him he felt honoured. When asked whether he would accept Samthann’s soul-friendship, he replied, ‘Tell her I would seek counsel from her’.
The messenger told this to Samthann and she said, ‘Indeed, something will come of that youth’. But then she drew her brooch out of her mantle and stuck it into her cheek. No blood came out. Finally a drop of water came out. She put it on her nail and said, ‘As long as there is this much liquid in his body let him bestow no friendship nor confidence upon womankind.’
This reply must have given Maelruan a jolt because the story is recorded in the Book of Tallaght. He went on to become a leader of the Celi De movement keeping the spirit of the Desert Fathers & Mothers alive in Ireland.
What I found when visiting Clonbroney was disappointing. The community there had existed from St Patrick’s time. According to the 9th century ‘Tripartite Life’, at Granard St Patrick ‘blessed the veil’ of the two sisters who set up the community at Clonbroney, probably the first for women in Ireland.
Over two centuries later Samthann was a member and so highly regarded that her ‘Life’ was recorded in Latin late in the 8th century.
Today there is nothing in Clonbroney to remind us of its founders or Samthann. The only hints of their presence are in a road sign and Samthann’s name on the local national school.
I wonder if the school’s pupils know about Samthann’s message to Maelruan and what they would make of it.
Despite its history and significance this very Irish site is the most neglected I have seen in Ireland.
Photos: Clonbroney today, the Road Sign, the School.