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Church of St Tigernan, Errew, Mayo

Location
(54°5′58″N, 9°19′0″W)
Errew, Church of St Tigernan
G 139 175
pre-1974 traditional (Republic of Ireland) Mayo
now Mayo
  • Hazel Gardiner

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Description

On the shores of Lough Conn. The church and conventual buildings are mainly 13thc. The only Romanesque feature is a reused, round-headed window with an arcuated lintel and with a thick, continuous angle roll, set high in the N wall of the chancel. No sculpture.

History

An Early Irish Monastery existed at this location, probably founded in the 6thc. (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 154). The obit of the Bishop of Cork, Giolla Aedha Ua Muidhin in 1172 records that he came from the community of Oired Locha Conn or Errew, suggesting that by the 12thc. the monastery was of sufficient importance to provide a senior ecclesiastic (Ó Floinn 1998, 161). In the 15thc. (1413) the site became Augustinian.

Gwynne and Hadcock record that there was also a nunnery at Errew, but the date and location of the foundation are obscure.

Comments/Opinions

Knox notes that the ruins are mainly of the 12th and 13thc. There is no evidence of earlier buildings.

A structure thought to be part of the above mentioned nunnery, Templenagalliaghdoo (Temple-na-galliach-dhub), lies nearby (Killanin and Duignan 1967, 193).

Bibliography

M. Archdall, Monasticon Hibernicum, or, A history of the abbeys, priories, and other religious houses in Ireland : interspersed with memoirs of their several founders and benefactors, and of their abbots and other superiors, to the time of their final suppression, Dublin, 1786, 502.

A. Gwynn and R. N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses in Ireland, 1970, London, 36, 154, 175, 310, 317.

P. Harbison, , Guide to the National and Historical Monuments of Ireland, Dublin, 1992, 246.

Killanin, M. and Duignan, M., The Shell Guide to Ireland, London, 1962, 2nd ed. 1967, 193.

H. Knox, The History of the County of Mayo to the close of the sixteenth century, Dublin, 1908, 90.

Ó Floinn, R., ‘The object known as the "Mias Tighearnáin"' in M. Ryan (ed.) Irish Antiquities; essays in memory of Joseph Raftery, Bray, 1998, 159-61.