Archaeology 360: Clonfert Cathedral. Co. Galway



Clonfert Cathedral, not far from the banks of the River Shannon in east Galway, on ground St Brendan the Navigator first chose for a monastery around 563 (yes, that Brendan - the one whose legendary voyages supposedly reached America the better part of a thousand years before Columbus, and who's buried somewhere inside). The majority of the exterior of the building is rather nondescript (& I managed to turn up when the doors were locked, so I've no film of the interior!). Still, there's no reason to be disappointed - the East Doorway is worth the journey on its own! Six orders of carved brown sandstone stacked one inside the other, crowded with animal heads, foliage and human faces, and capped by a steep triangular pediment where more stylised heads alternate with blank triangles, with an arcade of still more carved heads running beneath it. Nobody agrees on quite when it was created - some date it to around 1180, tied to a synod held here after the church burned in 1179, others put it closer to 1200 and credit a Bishop Peter O'Moore, who awkwardly held the See decades earlier, so take that attribution with a pinch of salt. Follow the carving down either side and the same repertoire continues onto the jambs, animal and human heads worked into the stone right down to the threshold, with one order swapped out for 15th-century blue limestone at some later repair. Step back for one last look at the whole thing together - weathered, lopsided in places, and still the richest single piece of Romanesque carving standing in Ireland.

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References

'Clonfert Cathedral', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

'St Brendan's Cathedral, Clonfert', Galway Community Archaeology

'Back to Clonfert', Roaringwater Journal

'Clonfert Cathedral: A medieval cathedral and monastic site in Ireland', Ancient History Sites

'Clonfert Cathedral, a Medieval Masterpiece in east County Galway', Barry's Guided Tours

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