Kilcorney, County Clare
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Kilcorney ( ga, Cill Choirne) (sometimes also Kilcornane) is a
civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...
in County Clare, Ireland. It lies in the Burren region of the northwest of the county.


Location

It is located in the
Barony of Burren The Barony of Burren is a geographical division of County Clare, Ireland, that in turn is divided into civil parishes. It covers a large part of the Burren. Legal context Baronies were created after the Norman invasion of Ireland as divisions ...
, north of Corofin. The parish is and covers . The land is typical of the broken, rocky and hilly country of the Burren. In 1841 the population was 330 in 50 houses.


Antiquities

Kilcorney parish was in existence by 1302. It was the smallest parish in the diocese of Kilfenora, ranking 21st out of 23 in the taxation list of 1302–6. Given that, the size of the parish church was surprisingly large and it also sported a
chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...
, not a standard feature in local parish churches. It may have benefitted from financial support by the O'Loghlen family, owners of Caherconnell cashel as well as the
tower houses A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, in order to command and defend strateg ...
(castles) at Glensleade and Lissylisheen, all within 2 km of the church. The parish contains caves, a cromlech, and the ruins of an old castle. There is a cave in Kilcorney townland (Cave of the Wild Horses) that is the subject of several legends. One is that an enchanted horse came from this cave and propagated its breed throughout the country.
Poulnabrone Dolmen Poulnabrone dolmen (Poll na Brón in Irish) is an unusually large dolmen or portal tomb located in the Burren, County Clare, Ireland. Situated on one of the most desolate and highest points of the region, it comprises three standing portal ston ...
is a portal tomb, dating back to the
Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
period, and situated north-west of the village of
Kilnaboy Kilnaboy or Killinaboy () is a village, townland and civil parish in County Clare, Ireland. It is located in the Burren, and as of the 2011 census the area had 347 inhabitants. Civil parish Kilnaboy is a parish in the historic Barony (Ireland ...
. Kilcorney Church lies south of the present day road. No information is extant about its founding. There are references to a St Coirné, but no saint of this name is known. The old church of Kilcorney was extremely dilapidated in 1897. Nearby there was the site of an older church dedicated to the same saint some way from the present ruin. In addition, around 350 m to the west of the old church there are the barely discernible ruins of an ancient ecclesiastical building known as Kilcolmanbara, dedicated to Saint Colman Bairé, presumably the same as Saint Colman Mac Duach. It may have been in use in 1675 when a deed mentioned a tract of land named ''Cille Cholmáin Bháire'' but was certainly abandoned by 1839. There are several holy wells nearby, possibly associated with pilgrimage to the site. The holy well of ''Tobar na nAingeal'' (well of angels, eye cures) is near the church. Another holy well, ''Tobar Colman Bairé'' (also eye cures), is in Glensleade townland, about 1.5 km north of Kilcolmanbara. Another is ''Tobar Inghine Bhaoith'' (cure for warts). Since ''coirneach'' means ''tonsured'' or ''tonsured person'', the site may have been an early monastic establishment, which also gave its name to the parish. Thus ''Cill Coirneach'' would have been the "church of the monks". There are various ruined stone or earth forts. These include Carher-na-mweela in the townland of Poulgorm, Caher-an-ard-dorais, Glensleade, Lisnanroum, Liscolmanbara, Lissaniska in Eanty beg south and Lissananima in Eanty beg north. Liscolman cashel near the Kilcolmanbara church may have been named for Colman, too. The castle of Glensleade belonged to a member of the O’Loghlen family in 1580. By 1897, it had been levelled to the ground. Caherconnell cashel is an early medieval, well-preserved
ringfort Ringforts, ring forts or ring fortresses are circular fortified settlements that were mostly built during the Bronze Age up to about the year 1000. They are found in Northern Europe, especially in Ireland. There are also many in South Wales ...
, located in the townland of Caherconnell, on the R480 road to
Ballyvaughan Ballyvaughan or Ballyvaghan () is a small harbour village in County Clare, Ireland. It is located on the N67 road on the south shores of Galway Bay, in the northwest corner of The Burren. This position on the coast road and the close proximity ...
.


Townlands

Townland A townland ( ga, baile fearainn; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a small geographical division of land, historically and currently used in Ireland and in the Western Isles in Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of Gaelic origi ...
s are Ballymihil, Baur North, Baur South, Caherconnell, Eantybeg North, Eantybeg South, Eantymore, Faherlaghroe, Glensleade, Kilcorney, Kilcorney Glebe, Lisnanroum, Magheraweeleen, Poulanine, Poulbaun, Poulgorm, Poulnabrone and Poulnaskagh. File:Caherconnell stone fort - outside ruins.JPG, Stone walls outside Caherconnell ringfort File:Poulnabrone 2011-09-14.jpg, Poulnabrone dolmen, a Neolithic portal tomb about north of Caherconnell ringfort.


References

Citations Sources * * * * *


External links


Kilcorney parish at Clare County Library
{{Civil parishes of County Clare Civil parishes of County Clare