Clonmacnoise: Co. Offaly

Duchas the Heritage Service [Published Date: 1998]. Soft cover, 52 pp. Second Edition. Contents include: Introduction, early history, the golden age of clonmacnoise, the decline of clonmacnoise, the nature of the settlement, site map, the churches and other buildings, the crosses, slabs & other artefacts. Color and black and white photos and illustrations throughout. [From Introduction] It is just an accident of History that Clonmacnoise today is not an important cathedral town and major crossing point of the Shannon. Such was its great importance between about AD 700 and 1200 that its population would probably have confidently expected this major centre of piety, learning, trade and craftsmanship to have continued to grow in importance up to the last day. How lucky we are that it declined, and that instead of a busy modern town with its traffic and noise strangling the much-altered remnants of an early ecclesiastical settlement, we find the extensive remains of buildings and crosses surviving in the peace and quiet of their outstanding rural setting on the banks of the Shannon. Ironically, in its present-day unspoilt tranquillity, it probably more closely resembles the site which St. Ciarán chose in the mid-6th century than the clamorous, busy, congested settlement it grew into some centuries later. Of all the ecclesiastical centres of this period in Ireland, Clonmacnoise was second in importance only to Armagh, and probably surpassed Armagh in its artistic and literary achievements.