St. Manman of Clonaslee

The village of Clonaslee, nestled in the Slieve Bloom Mountains of County Laois, was the site of two seventh century monasteries founded by St. Manman. One was Carrigeen, meaning hermitage of the rocks, and the second, almost two miles north of the village, is Kilmanman, meaning the Church of Manman.

Carrigeen, also know as Lanchoil or Lahoil, is said to have been the hermitage of the Saint. Kilmanman was the larger of the two foundations and is the site of considerable remains of a later fifteenth century Church. Nearby, there is a Holy Well called St. Manman's Well.

Information upon the life of St. Manman is so scarce that even Dr. Comerford in his Collections relating to the Dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin, Vol. 3, 1886, gives the mere fact of his existence and passes on to later times for which more material was available. Likewise, Canon O'Hanlon's History of Queen's County gives but passing information.

His name, at least in the form in which it is known today, does not appear on any of the ancient Irish Calendars but local tradition establishes his pattern day as 5th August. However, that his name survives and that his memory holds the respect that it does is a lesson to us to remember, however dimly, our holy Fathers in the Faith.

St. Manman of Clonaslee, pray for us!

The Standing Stone: The Clonfnlough Stone, Rock Art, Co. Offaly.

Original article can be found here.


Location – A few miles East of Clonmacnoise on Esker Hill.
OS: N 042 296 (map 47)
Longitude: 7° 56' 13.37" W
Latitude: 53° 19' 1.53" N
GPS: N04195 29647 (Accuracy – 5m)
See map at the bottom of the page.

Description and History – This rock art needs a bit of time to look at. When I got here I just couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing and it took some time to allow my brain to make sense of all the patterns and depressions in the stone. This is a large glacial boulder that has been decorated with various designs. There are cup marks indicating a Bronze Age date but yet there are some clear cross shapes which suggest a Christian hand in the making. Could this be a multi-period site? Maybe early Christians found this rock and decided to Christianize it. I’m just speculating but it is a possibility. Among the cup marks and the cross shapes is a shoe print. This is very unusual and I can’t quite make sense of it. Why a shoe print? How old is this design? It has been argued that many of the designs on the rock are natural but have been enhanced at some point by a human hand. Needless to say this is an unusual and interesting site and worth having a look at.

Difficulty – This rock is signposted from the road and there is a path up to it. There is room for one or two cars on the side of the road.

Cup marks.

One of the many cross designs.

The shoe print.

Some has carved their initial onto the stone.

View The Standing Stone in a larger map

The Standing Stone: Kilbride, Church, Co. Offaly.

Original article can be found here.


Location – Along the banks of the canal, W of Tullamore.
OS: N 304 253 (map 48)
Longitude: 7° 32' 36.66" W
Latitude: 53° 16' 39.11" N
GPS: N 30447 25340 (Accuracy – 6m)
See map at the bottom of the page.

Description and History – There is little left of this canal side church but it boasts a long history. A church was originally located here in the 8th century when Irish monks were establishing many communities in the area. The present structure is late medieval and may not have had a long period of usage as the Penal Laws brought an end to Catholic worship here as it did to many other churches throughout Ireland. The present church is badly ruined and measures 16m x 7.5m. The E and W walls survive to full height but the N wall has collapsed in recent years destroying very fine Latin inscribed gravestone underneath it. The graveyard contains some very nice gravestones.

Difficulty – Easy to find on the canal side. Ample parking.

Recently collapsed section of wall.

I think this portion of wall will collapse soon.

There are some lovely late medieval grave stones here.

View The Standing Stone in a larger map

The Assumption in Kildare

The Assumption of the Virgin by Rubens c. 1626

The feast of the Assumption was observed in Ireland by great acts of charity, even in the times of persecution. Dr. Comerford, in his Collections Relating to the Dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin at Volume 2, page 42, tells us:

"Recording the death of Margaret O'Carroll, wife of O'Conor Faly, in 1451, the Four Masters say of her that "she was the best woman of her time in Ireland, for it was she who had given two invitations of hospitality in the one year to those who sought for rewards," (i.e., poets, minstrels, members of the mendicant orders, etc.) These feasts, as we learn from Duald Mac Firbis, took place, one at Killeigh, on the Feast of Da Sinchell, the 26th of March, - at which 2,700 persons were entertained, - and the other at Rathangan; "and she gave the second invitation to everyone that came not to the first, on the feast of the Assumption of our Blessed Lady in harvest, at or in the Rath-Imayn, and so we have been informed that that second day in Rath-Imayn was nothing inferior to the first day."

A Mhaighdine Muire, tógailte suas ar Neamh, guidh orainn!

The ones that got away - Edenderry

It is one of the greatest ironies of the modernist liturgical/architectural movement in the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin that 20th century Churches, and mid-twentieth century Churches at that, have generally come off worst when it comes to the destruction of sanctuaries.

"They have razed our proudest castles, spoiled the Temples of the Lord,
Burned to dust the sacred relics, put the Peaceful to the sword,
Desecrated all things holy, as they soon may do again,
If their power to-day we smite not, if to-day we be not men!

One of the few early 20th century Churches in the Diocese - and a gem of neo-Hiberno-Romanesque - is new St. Mary's Church, Edenderry, Co. Offaly. It's own re-ordering was delayed by the Planning and Development Acts and the decision of An Bord Pleanala (Ref. No.:19.RF0970) which provided that the construction of a new sanctuary area, a modified seating arrangement and the conversion of the baptistry to a "reconciliation room" would require planning permission.

To quote again from a certain Cardinal Ratzinger to the then Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin: "It is certainly true that a great number of churches since the Second Vatican Council have been re-arranged; such changes, while inspired by the liturgical reform, cannot however be said to have been required by the legislation of the Church."

William Byrne and Son, who were responsible for the new towers additional to the Parish Churches in Abbeyleix (1906) and Mountmellick (1904), and for the Parish Church in Suncroft (1906) in a simple gothic idiom, had submitted a design for a romanesque Church with aisle, small transepts and short belltower with pyramidal roof in Edenderry. What was built was not far from that description but it was the work of Anthony and William Scott, father and son.

Anthony Scott designed the mortuary chapel in Naas cemetery (1907) as well as the Convent of St. John of God next to St. Mary's Edenderry (1914), However, his practice as regards Churches was generally confined to renovations and alterations of pre-existing structures. The elder Scott was to die in 1919. St. Mary's and the Convent seem to have been the only work undertaken by the younger Scott in the Diocese.

The first sod of St. Mary's was turned 1913 and the foundation stone laid in 1914 by Bishop Foley of Kildare and Leighlin. The Church was opened for public worship in June, 1919, and, in 1932, became one of the few Churches of the Diocese to be Consecrated. The entrance gates are attributed to Arthur Williams (1921). The magnificnet interior is partly the work of the firm of the great George Ashlin in partnership with Thomas Coleman. In his previous partnership with Edward Welby Pugin he was responsible for the Church of the Sacred Heart, Arles, and, appropriately enough, St. Coleman's Cathedral, Cobh. Ashlin and Coleman are responsible for the High Altar, Sacred Heart Altar, pulpit, Shrines of St. Brigid and St. Anthony, communion rail, mosaics, etc. In short, it is their contribution that was principally under threat from the new liturgical requirements of somebody-or-other.

Our Catholic Heritage - Kildare and Leighlin (Part 1)

Reference to The Fold in a forthcoming postmade me look up the Diocesan Year Book of the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin. Over a relatively short period of the 50s and 60s it is a remarkably repetitious publication but it also gives us some side-lights upon the Catholic heritage of the Diocese.

The Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin is the successor to the two Dioceses of that name. The Diocese of Kildare being erected about 490, is the more ancient of the two by about 600 years, and is just past its fifteenth centenary.


The Diocese of Kildare once claimed the Primacy of Leinster and, as the seat of the Patroness of Ireland, St. Brigid, might claim a moral prominence over at least three of the four Arciepiscopal Sees.


The two sees were united in 1678 and is a suffragan see of the Archdiocese of Dublin, together with the Dioceses of Ferns and Ossory. The Archdiocese of Dublin has three regular locations where the Gregorian Rite is celebrated, one being St. Kevin's Church, Harrington Street, where a Chaplaincy of three Diocesan Priests offers Mass at least daily. The Diocese of Ossory provides Mass in the Gregorian Rite every Sunday in Kilkenny. The Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin provides Mass in the Gregorian Rite on the second Sunday of the month (usually).


The Diocese of Kildare includes the northern half of that county, part of Offaly east of Tullamore and the northern part of Laois. It contains the ancient territories of Offaly, Carbury, and Hy Faelain. The Diocese of Leighlin lies north and south, including one half of Laois, all of County Carlow, together with portions of Counties Kilkenny, Wexford and Wicklow. It encompasses ancient Leix, which connects it with Kildare and a portion of Ui Ceinnsealaigh.


Among the Saints and scholars of the Diocese can be numbered St. Fiacc of Sletty, author of a poem in Irish on the life of St. Patrick, a poem in Latin on St. Brigid; St. Eimhin of Monasterevan, author of the "Tripartite Life" of St. Patrick, the "Life of St. Comgall," "Emin's Tribute (or Rule)," the "Lay of the Bell of St. Emin,"; St. Moling, who wrote a poem on Clonmore-Maedoc, one on the Borumha tribute of which he obtained the remission; St. Brogan of Clonsast, who composed a litany in Irish to Our Lady, indulgenced by Pius IX, a poem foretelling the Danish invasion, and the lost "Book of Clonsast"; St. Aedh, Bishop of Sletty, writer of a life of St. Patrick; Aengus the Culdee, joint author of the "Feilire," the "Martyrology of Tallaght," "Litany of the Saints," "De sanctis Hiberniae lib. V," a history of the Old Testament in metre, and the "Saltair-na-rann"; Siadhal, Abbot of Kildare, who compiled notes on the Epistles of St. Paul; Anmchadh, Bishop of Kildare, who wrote the fourth life of St. Brigid; Finn Mac Gorman, Bishop of Kildare, under whom the "Book of Leinster" was compiled; Dr. Maguire, Bishop of Leighlin, to whom the "Yellow Book of Leighlin" is attributed.


In more modern times we can recall, Dr. Gallagher, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, whose Irish sermons are a model; Dr. Doyle, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin and famous essayist; and Dr. Comerford, Co-adjutor Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, whose historical and devotional works are still valued.


The united diocese is one of the largest in Ireland, having an area 1,029,829 acres. The Annuario Pontificio for 2007 records that the Diocese has a population of 220,427, of whom 93.1% or 205,185 souls are Catholics, compared with 1901, when, out of a total population of 149,168, 87.4% or 130,377 were Catholics. In 2006, the Annuario reports that the Diocese had 114 secular Priests and 98 religious Priests (although that is obviously an error). In 1908, the Diocese had 133 secular Priests and 18 regular Priests. Thus, in 2006, there was one Priest for every 1,068 Catholics in the Diocese, compared with one Priest for every 863 Catholics in the first decade of the last Century. Put into the context of a fall in practice from around 97% to 50% or less, that isn't a bad average.


The images that are included in this post are from the 1959 Year Book of the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin. Each year, a colour supplement was included, e.g., the Marian Year and the Canonization of St. Pius X in 1954-55, the Scapulars of the Church in 1956. In 1959, the colour supplement records a sight that would not be seen in the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin for another 40 years...


It's our Catholic heritage and we want it back, please!