durrow abbey co. offaly conservation plan - Offaly County Council

tery. Another reads ‘OR DO AIGIDIU’ or ‘Pray for
Aigidiu’ and probably relates to Aed mac Aicidi, lord
of Tethba who death is recorded in the Annals in
954 or 955. The legible por tion of another reads
‘DOM’ and the dedication may relate to Domhnaill
of Clann Cholmáin who died in about 758 3 .
The four th has a long inscription which is now only
par tly legible and has not been related to a specific
historical figure 4 .
The Book of Durrow
Book of Durrow
The Book of Durrow is an ar tefact of outstanding
quality from the early medieval period and
was produced in the late seventh century. Its original
provenance is debatable but the manuscript
was at Durrow by the end of the ninth or early
tenth century when it was enshrined by Flann mac
Maelsechnaill, King of Ireland 5 . The manufacture of
the book shrine along with the presence of the high
cross and decorated cross slabs points to the existence
of a well-developed craft centre at Durrow in
the early medieval period. The manuscript is again
recorded as being in the possession of the monastery
in the late eleventh or early twelfth century.
By the early seventeenth century it was in local
hands 6 . The manuscript’s custody later passed to
Henry Jones, the Bishop of Meath, from 1661 to
1682 who had previously served as Scoutmaster
General to Cromwell’s army in Ireland. Jones presented
the manuscript, along with the Book of Kells,
to Trinity College.
The site was used as a burial place for bishops,
abbots and the nobles of the midlands and Munster
including Áed mac Brénainn, king of Tethba who
was buried there in the sixth century, Domhnaill of
Clann Colmáin who was buried there in the eighth
century and Murchadh Ua Briain a grandson of
Brian Borumha who was interred there in the early
eleventh century 7 .
Monastic Enclosure
A feature of many early medieval monastic sites is
an enclosure, usually of circular or oval shape, delimited
by an ear then bank and fosse or sometimes a
stone wall 8 . Discernible on aerial photographs of
the site (GSIAP, N 536-6) 56-6) the enclosure at Durrow
consists of a large double ditch with an intervening
fosse delimiting an area about 500 meters in diameter.
The construction of the enclosure is recorded
in a tale in Betha Colaim Chille (the Life of Columcille)
in which Columcille requested that Comac Ó
Liatháin encourage Laisrén, the abbot of Durrow,
to ‘set the monastery in order and enclose it well’.
Herber t dates Betha Colaim Chille to about 1150
– 1169 9 . A poem attributed to the saint, but written
several centuries after his death, provides additional
detail. Laisrén and over 150 workers set about the
construction of the enclosure so that it might not
have any breaches. The forest around Durrow was
cut down to make stakes which were used to protect
each side of the monastery 10 . Geophysical surveys
under taken at the site in 2000 and 2001 have
revealed the line of the enclosure which runs in
a wide arc through the fields to the south of the
church and graveyard (GSB 2000; GSB 2001). The
centre of the enclosure, the inner sanctum, would
have contained the core monastic buildings. It is
possible that the present graveyard is roughly coterminous
with this inner sanctum and its edge
may have been fur ther defined by the position of
the high cross which may have acted as a termon
cross 11 . The inner sanctum was surrounded by an
outer area, also enclosed, containing associated
habitation, craft and agricultural activities.
St Columcille’s Island
St. Columcille’s Island, located at the nor theast
of the site, is a D-shaped, wooded, marshy area.
The island is bounded on the nor th side by a low