Knockainey or Knockainy () is a civil parish and village in County Limerick, Ireland. It is in the historical barony of

Smallcounty Smallcounty or ‘’’Small County’’’ ( ga, An Déis Bheag) is a historical Barony (Ireland), barony in County Limerick, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Settlements in the barony include Hospital, County Limerick, Hospital, Herbertstown, Fed ...

, between the towns of

Hospital A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...

and

Bruff Bruff () is a town in east County Limerick, in the midwest of Ireland, located on the old Limerick–Cork road ( R512). The town lies on the Morning Star river, with two bridges in the town itself. The horseshoe lake of Lough Gur is nearby ...

. There are a large number of archaeological sites in the area, including several on Knockainy Hill in the townland of Knockainy West. These remains, which include cursus,

cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...

, ring fort,

standing stone A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright rock (geology), stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. T ...

and

ring barrow A ring cairn (also correctly termed a ring bank enclosure, but sometimes wrongly described as a ring barrow) is a circular or slightly oval, ring-shaped, low (maximum 0.5 metres high) embankment, several metres wide and from 8 to 20 metres in ...

sites, form part of a complex traditionally associated with the sun goddess Áine. A nearby clapper bridge, known as ''Clochán Áine'', is also associated with Áine. Knockainy Castle is a 15th or 16th century tower house, associated by several sources with the O'Grady family, who were stewards to the

Earls of Desmond Earl of Desmond is a title in the peerage of Ireland () created four times. When the powerful Earl of Desmond took arms against Queen Elizabeth Tudor, around 1578, along with the King of Spain and the Pope, he was confiscated from his estates, ...

. The former Church of Ireland church in Knockainy, dedicated to Saint John, was built in the 19th century on the site of a much earlier ecclesiastical enclosure. The building's

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

dates to the 17th century, and there is an O'Grady family plaque dating to the early 16th century. This church was deconsecrated in 1999 and is now used to host events. The local Catholic church, a more modern building, is located to the south. It forms part of the parish of Knockaney and Patrickswell in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly. The local national (primary) school, Knockainey National School or ''Scoil Náisiúnta Cnoc Áine'', had an enrollment of 181 pupils as of January 2024. The local Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) club, Knockainey GAA, won the Limerick Intermediate Hurling Championship in 2001.

References

External links

Ordnance Survey of Ireland - Letters - 094 - Parish of Knockainy (transcription via limerickcity.ie)
{{coord, 52.4737, -8.4682, region:IE_dim:10000, display=title Towns and villages in County Limerick Civil parishes of County Limerick