Kilmalkedar Church.....

The ancient monastery of Kilmalkedar, founded in the seventh century by St. Maolcathair, is one of the foremost Early Christian sites of the Dingle Peninsula. The remains of the existing church is a twelfth-century building consisting of a nave to which a chancel was added at a later date, as was the usual practice. Many of the features which typify Irish Romanesque architecture are present. The bold antae with animal-head decoration are well preserved, as is the round-headed doorway with blank tympanum. The high pitched gables (one with finial) survive intact, but of the original barrel-vaulted roof only the merest fragments remain. In the nave is a good example of blind colonnading, recalling Cormac's Chapel at Cashel, with which it is often compared. late-Romanesque geometric motifs adorn the columns of the chancel arch.

A number of interesting objects stand outside the church. These include a tall slender Ogham stone perforated with a circular hole near the top (the Bargaining Stone), a large ringless cross devoid of any decoration and therefore possibly unfinished and a beautiful sundial stone marked in segments corresponding to the divisions of the monastic day.

 

Copyright © 1981-2005 by Eugene F. Vogt. All rights reserved. Last modified 08 May 2005 08:32 PM. Send questions or comments to the Family TreeHouse. View our Privacy Policy