Religious, Spiritual sights in Ireland
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Clonmacnoise
Superbly placed overlooking the River Shannon, Clonmacnoise was one of Ireland's most important monastic cities. The site is enclosed in a walled field and contains numerous early churches, high crosses, round towers and graves in astonishingly good condition. The surrounding marshy area is known as the Shannon Callows, home to many wild plants and animals.
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St Audoen’s Protestant Church
The only surviving medieval parish church in the city, St Audoen’s was built between 1181 and 1212, though the site is thought to be much older. Enlarged in its 15th-century heyday, it shrank to its present size in the 18th and 19th centuries, when the eastern wing and St Anne’s Chapel were left to ruin.
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St Columb's Cathedral
Built between 1628 and 1633 from the same grey-green schist as the city walls, St Columb's Cathedral was the first post-Reformation church to be built in Britain and Ireland, and is Derry's oldest surviving building.
In the porch (under the spire, by the St Columb's Court entrance) you can see the original foundation stone of 1633 that records the cathedral's completion, inscribed: If stones could speake/Then London's prayse/Should sounde who/Built this church and/Cittie from the grounde.
The smaller stone inset, inscribed 'In Templo Verus Deus Est Vereo Colendus' (The True God is in His Temple and is to be truly worshipped), comes from the original church built here in…
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Rock of Cashel's Cathedral
This 13th-century Gothic structure overshadows the other ruins. Entry is through a small porch facing the Hall of the Vicars Choral. The cathedral's western location is formed by the Archbishop's Residence, a 15th-century, four-storey castle that had its great hall built over the nave. Soaring above the centre of the cathedral is a huge, square tower with a turret on the southwestern corner.
Scattered throughout are monuments, panels from 16th-century altar tombs, and coats of arms. If you have binoculars, look for the numerous stone heads on capitals and corbels high above the ground.
On the northeastern corner of the cathedral is an 11th- or 12th-century round tower, the…
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St Mary's Abbey
Across the River Boyne from the castle are the ruins of the 12th-century Augustinian St Mary's Abbey, rebuilt after a fire in 1368 and once home to a wooden statue of Our Lady of Trim, which was revered by the faithful for its miraculous powers. In 1649 Cromwell's soldiers set fire to the statue in front of their injured commander, General Croot, a rather poignant slap in the face of Catholic belief. Just in case the locals didn't get the symbolism of the gesture, the soldiers destroyed the abbey as well. An artists' rendition of the statue is by the roadside in front of the ruins.
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Church of Ireland Church
St Multose is the patron saint of Kinsale, and the Church of Ireland church is one of Ireland’s oldest, built around 1190 by the Normans on the site of a 6th-century church. Not much of the interior is original but the exterior is preserved beautifully. The graveyard has some interesting large family tombs, and several victims of the Lusitania sinking are also buried there. Inside, a flat stone carved with a round-handed figure was traditionally rubbed by fishermen’s wives to bring their husbands home safe from the sea.
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Reefert Church
Follow the Upper Lake lakeshore path southwest of the car park until you come to the considerable remains of Reefert Church above the tiny River Poulanass. It's a small, plain, 11th-century Romanesque nave-and-chancel church with some reassembled arches and walls. Traditionally, Reefert (literally 'Royal Burial Place') was the burial site of the chiefs of the local O'Toole family. The surrounding graveyard contains a number of rough stone crosses and slabs, most made of shiny mica schist.
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Teampall na Skellig
The original site of St Kevin's settlement, Teampall na Skellig, is at the base of the cliffs towering over the southern side of the Upper Lake and accessible only by boat; unfortunately, there's no boat service to the site and you'll have to settle for looking at it across the lake. The terraced shelf has the reconstructed ruins of a church and early graveyard. Rough wattle huts once stood on the raised ground nearby. Scattered around are some early grave slabs and simple stone crosses.
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Long Tower Church
Outside the city walls to the southwest is Long Tower Church, Derry's first post-Reformation Catholic church. Built in 1784 in neo-Renaissance style, it stands on the site of the medieval Teampall Mór (Great Church), built in 1164, whose stones were used to help build the city walls in 1609. Long Tower was built with the support of the Anglican bishop of the time, Frederick Augustus Harvey, who presented the capitals for the four Corinthian columns framing the ornate high altar.
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St Kevin's Kitchen
Glendalough's trademark is St Kevin's Kitchen or Church at the southern edge of the enclosure. This church, with a miniature round towerlike belfry, protruding sacristy and steep stone roof, is a masterpiece. How it came to be known as a kitchen is a mystery as there's no indication that it was anything other than a church. The oldest parts of the building date from the 11th century - the structure has been remodelled since but it's still a classic early Irish church.
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St Eugene's Cathedral
The Roman Catholic St Eugene's Cathedral was begun in 1851 as a response to the end of the Great Famine, and dedicated to St Eugene in 1873 by Bishop Kelly; the handsome east window (1891) is a memorial to the bishop. The bells of St Eugene's still ring every night at 21:00 as a reminder of the Penal Laws (in force from 1691 until the early 19th century) which forbade Catholics to attend mass and subjected them to a 21:00 curfew.
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Cathedral of Sts Peter and Paul
Ruins at Newtown Cemetery include Newtown's Cathedral of Sts Peter and Paul. The cathedral was founded in 1206 and burned down two centuries later. Parts of the cathedral wall were flattened by a storm in 1839, which also damaged sections of the Trim Castle wall.
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St Kevin's Cell
Climb the steps at the back of the Reefert Churchyard and follow the path to the west and you'll find, at the top of a rise overlooking the lake, the scant remains of St Kevin's Cell, a small beehive hut.
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Díseart
In the former convent, next to St Mary's Church, is the Celtic culture centre Díseart, which has stained-glass windows by Harry Clarke depicting 12 scenes from the life of Christ.
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St Mary's Church
The 10th-century St Mary's Church , 140m southwest of the round tower, probably originally stood outside the walls of the monastery and belonged to local nuns. It has a lovely western doorway.
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St Saviour's Church
The road east leads to St Saviour's Church , with its detailed Romanesque carvings. To the west, a nice woodland trail leads up the valley past the Lower Lake to the Upper Lake.
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St Patrick's Church
Almost everything commercial in Trim is on or near Market St. That huge steeple you see just south belongs to St Patrick's Church, parts of which date to the 15th century.
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Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul
Near the round tower, to the southeast, is the Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul with a 10th-century nave. The chancel and sacristy date from the 12th century.
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Ennis Cathedral
The large but fairly mundane 1843 Cathedral is at the southern end of O'Connell St; it's spire is a useful landmark from afar.
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St Kieran's Church
A little to the east are the scant remains of St Kieran's Church, the smallest at Glendalough.
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Cill Cheannannach
Cill Cheannannach is a rough 8th- or 9th-century church, south of the pier.
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Church of Our Lady of Lourdes
Off Hardmans Gardens is the rather charming Church of Our Lady of Lourdes.
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