| I. Thirteenth century - Anglo-Norman pattern parish church |
|
STAGES AND STYLES
Ivona, Dan and Rachel undertook a detailed survey to clarify and add detail to the previous surveys (Westropp, 1909 and OPW, 1992). First, a close visual examination and measured survey was made of the important junctions between the chancel and the nave, and between the chancel and the sacristy. The distribution and treatment of different types of stones was examined to try to discover indications of separate stylistic phases within the building. The material evidence from the Abbey was compared with the available documentary evidence and similar structures in Ireland, such as Clare’s mother abbey at Knockmoy, Co. Galway. These strands were pieced together to suggest a series of possible stages within the construction process of the Abbey.
The important edges, corners and openings around the Abbey complex are mostly faced with serpentinite, a richly coloured, veined stone which outcrops in a narrow band from north-west to mid-east on the island . This stone seems to be treated in different ways - as large, rough blocks forming the quoin stones of the nave; as smoothly-finished but undecorated blocks framing the chancel arch, or as delicately-carved cusps and mouldings on the windows of the chancel and the doors to the west and north of the nave, and the west entrance to the sacristy.
We had hoped at first to be able to use the stone as a definitive dating tool. However, it clearly occurs in very different stages of the building’s construction. Comparing its use with the blocks framing a window in Granuaile’s castle at the harbour on Clare, it seems more likely that its surface finish changes according to date but that its position remains constant - ie. that Islanders knew that it was a good material to use in the hard-wearing sites at edges and openings. The walls could be constructed of the rubble stones found as drift all over the island, a material which is strong and long-lasting as long as it is finished and coated properly. The tomb niche then employs an expensive, highly-worked limestone, imported from the mainland, to convey the prestige of the person interred.
The first mention of a monastic site on Clare Island comes in Jongelin’s description of monks being driven off the island by pirates in 1224. Who were these monks? They may have belonged to the Celtic monastic tradition, which was being gradually overtaken and replaced with the orders of European origin such as the Cistercians, Augustinians and Franciscans. If there was a Celtic oratory on the Island, was it situated where the current Abbey now sits? This site is in or near the townland of Kill, meaning ‘church’, and near the holy sites of Tobar Féile Muire, Mary’s Well, and the early Christian cross-inscribed stone. Was its architecture like that of the surviving Celtic oratories, such as in Galway?
| I. Thirteenth century - Anglo-Norman pattern parish church |
|
If there were a monastery of some description on Clare by the thirteenth century, there also needed to be somewhere for the general population to worship. The alignment of the inner and outer faces of the wall separating the current chancel from the nave suggests that the nave was built as a separate structure first. [link to detail] The distribution and treatment of the openings supports this. One door has been blocked up in the south wall, while a later door with a carefully carved, pointed arch, has been inserted into the west wall. These details, of a simple, unpartitioned, rectangular-plan church, with a main door on the south side and a few small windows, match the typical features of an Anglo-Norman parish church of the thirteenth century.
|
|
Blocked doorway in south wall of nave |
|
Carved surround of west door |
After those early monks were driven off the island, the monastic site came under the aegis of Abbeyknockmoy, a Cistercian abbey in Galway. At some point, the decision was made to add a cell to the east end of the nave. This is a little mysterious. The Cistercians would have been attracted to Clare because of its remoteness, and the ascendant branch of the ruling O’Malley family would have wanted the prestige of a monastic community on its island. However, Cistercian monks did not usually take on the responsibility for a parish, so why are the monastic chancel and the parochial nave so closely associated here? Perhaps a pastoral responsibility was part of the agreement with the O’Malleys: monks from Abbeyknockmoy would be granted land in their ideal, remote location, in return for looking after the parishioners.
Top of the Page / Back to the Architecture Homepage
| II. Fifteenth century - East wall of church is removed to add on cell tower |
|
The middle portion of the east wall of the church was removed, while leaving in position the larger and stronger quoin stones for structural stability. A gap was thus created into which the squat tower of the chancel could be inserted.
Top of the Page / Back to the Architecture Homepage
| III. Fifteenth century - Tower contains chancel at lower level and accommodation on upper level |
|
The tower probably appeared much the same as it does today, a simple, two-storey square form, coated with lime harl to protect it from the weather and with a bell cote, now missing, at the top of the east gable. Its details, such as the cusped ogee-headed windows, place the Abbey in the trend of the International Gothic percolating into Ireland and would tie in with the dating of the O’Malley family feuds around the mid-fifteenth century.
|
|
View of south elevation of chancel tower |
|
Gothic east window |
To regularise the composition, the old nave door in the south wall was blocked up and a new door, on the axis of the chancel and faced with an ashlar pointed arch, was inserted into the west wall.
At this time, a simple wooden floor separated the chancel from the dormitory above. The stair in the south wall shows a regular flight of steps descending straight to an exit into the nave.
Top of the Page / Back to the Architecture Homepage
| IV. Fifteenth century - A northern range is built to provide a sacristy and extra accommodation |
|
Growing larger and more complex, additional spaces such as a sacristy, spaces for eating etc. would have been required. The block to the north of the chancel shows a seam in the masonry of the east wall, indicating its later addition.
|
|
East façade |
|
Interior view of north door |
There are two possibilities for access to this space: via a door broken directly through the north wall of the chancel, or via a door broken through the north wall of the nave and a door in the west wall of the sacristy [link to detail]. The easternmost of the two doors currently in the north wall of the nave is faced with a pointed arch executed in the same stone and the same type of moulding as the new west door, and also shows evidence at its base of a structure extending to the north of the nave. Was there a corridor-type space connecting the nave and the sacristy?
Top of the Page / Back to the Architecture Homepage
| V. Fifteenth century - Stairs are built into the north wall to connect the space above the chancel with the sacristy |
|
A stair connecting the dormitory above the chancel with the upper level of the sacristy range now allowed access to the service spaces without having to cross the holy space of the chancel. Irregular treads and an apparent break in the wall seem to show that the exit into the chancel was made later, perhaps to allow separate entrances before and behind a rood screen extending across the chancel arch. [link to detail]
Top of the Page / Back to the Architecture Homepage
| VI. Fifteenth to sixteenth century - internal arrangements and decorations are elaborated |
|
As the Abbey grew more complex, there may have been cause to enrich its decorations. If there were a door between the sacristy and the chancel, it could now be reblocked to allow the first phase of decoration to be carried out on the walls. In other words, the possibility of enriching the space with wall paintings outweighed the inconvenience of losing a direct access route. Alternatively, a series of niches along the north wall could have been enriched, one with plaster infill and painted decoration, the central one with a carved tracery tomb of imported stone. The settlement of the tomb carvings seems to indicate an absence of sufficient structural support to the east, and a section taken through the wall between chancel and sacristy shows the break and subsequent infill of a gap of door-like dimensions. [link to detail]
The simple wooden ceiling was replaced with a stone barrel-vault turned over a wicker centring and supported from two simple pillars inserted at the eastern corners of the chancel. This vault was plastered and painted with its cycle of ribs in imitation of the structural ribs at Abbeyknockmoy, infilled with scenes of people and creatures.
|
|
Trompe l'oeil ceiling of chancel, imitating the real structure at Abbeyknockmoy |
Top of the Page / Back to the Architecture Homepage
| VII. Up to the present - an additional door was opened from the north of the nave |
|
Mysteries remain in the Abbey structure. Another door opens from the north wall of the nave. Did this connect to another space or was it an exit to the outside if a corridor opened from the door next to it? No traces have been found of any such structure to the north of the Abbey.
The west wall of the sacristy range shows an even line of long stones at the height of the vault inside. [link to detail] Was the sacristy built in several stages, perhaps being of a single storey first?
The entrances between the sacristy stairs and the space inside show an earlier, wide doorway with a flat lintel on the inner leaf, later filled in with a small arched doorway. This small doorway, the only exit from the space once the chancel door was blocked, has a spudstone and a bolt ring, indicating that it could only be locked from the inside. The reduction in size of this opening also affected the stairway, blocking in an earlier pair of finished ashlar reveals at its base. [link to detail]
The most intriguing feature of the Abbey is the niche opening outwards from the north wall of the chancel, connecting inside via a small peephole [link to detail] Its local name of teach na mban, ‘house of the women’, could suggest some sort of female monastic presence or a segregation of the female from the male congregation. It may be a leper-squint. The form of the alcove is itself interesting. A line of strong lintel stones caps the small space and the wall has been infilled with rubble where a gap has been made to insert the O’Maille armorial plaque inside. Christoph Oldenbourg suggests the former presence of a line of three niches in the north wall, one now covered with painted decoration, one filled with the tomb niche, and one blocked in to frame the armorial plaque and excavated from the other side to make the niche which now exists.
