Mullinabreena

Introduction

In the townland of Carniara, within the parish of Achonry-Mullinabreena, survives a substantial early ecclesiastical site. No standing church remains, but a large oval enclosure is still clearly visible on the ground. Within it, archaeological survey has recorded the possible site of a church and graveyard.

Historian Paul MacCotter identifies this site with Cill Easbuig, meaning “the Bishop’s Church”. By tracing a series of records concerning the church lands of Achonry, MacCotter connected Cill Easbuig with Carniara, where the surviving ecclesiastical enclosure provides an archaeological counterpart to the documentary evidence.

The origins of the church remain unknown. Achonry’s ecclesiastical history extends centuries before the establishment of the medieval diocese in 1152, raising the possibility that Cill Easbuig also belonged to this earlier Christian landscape. At present, however, the evidence does not allow the church itself to be assigned to a particular century.

Nor do we know when or why Cill Easbuig ceased to function. What can be followed much more clearly is the survival of its name and lands. Together, the archaeological and documentary evidence allow the history of a largely forgotten church to be partly recovered, while leaving some fundamental questions unanswered.

The Church Site at Carniara

The ecclesiastical site at Carniara is recorded by the Archaeological Survey of Ireland as SL032-141003. It consists of a large oval enclosure measuring approximately 105 metres ENE-WSW by 97 metres NNW-SSE. Its boundary is formed by collapsed, sod-covered stone walls and banks, substantial portions of which remain visible on the ground.

Within the enclosure, the Archaeological Survey records the possible site of a church (SL032-141001) and graveyard (SL032-141002). Other recorded features include a souterrain in the south-western part of the enclosure, a hut site and a limekiln. These features need not all belong to the same period, but they show that the archaeology of the site is more complex than the remains of a single church.

The scale of the enclosure was noted by archaeologist Kieran O’Conor following fieldwork undertaken for the Archaeological Survey of Ireland in 1993. O’Conor described an enclosure approximately 100 metres in diameter, defined by a collapsed, sod-covered wall or bank, and considered it far too large to be classified as a ringfort. Within it he recorded the foundations of a rectangular building, approximately 12.25 metres east-west by 5.2 metres north-south, together with a smaller enclosure near its centre. The complex was interpreted by the Archaeological Survey as the possible site of an early medieval ecclesiastical settlement.

Modern LiDAR imagery provides another view of the surviving earthworks. The principal enclosure can be clearly traced within the surrounding field system, while more subtle variations in the terrain appear to indicate additional boundaries nearby. Their date and relationship to the ecclesiastical site cannot be determined from LiDAR alone and would require further archaeological investigation.

Carniara also formed part of a wider early medieval settlement landscape. O’Conor recorded three ringforts elsewhere in the townland and concluded that Carniara was extensively occupied and farmed during the early medieval period. He considered it possible that at least one of these sites continued in occupation beyond about AD 1000, perhaps into the later medieval period, although only excavation could establish this.

Taken together, the evidence points to a substantial early ecclesiastical site within a wider landscape of early medieval settlement. Its historical identity can be approached through the surviving records of the church lands of Achonry, where an older name appears: Cill Easbuig, the Bishop’s Church.

Cill Easbuig: The Bishop’s Church

The identification of the Carniara site with Cill Easbuig rests principally on Paul MacCotter’s reconstruction of the church lands of the diocese of Achonry. Because surviving medieval documentation for the diocese is limited, MacCotter compared later records to trace older ecclesiastical estates whose names had changed or disappeared.

Among the lands listed in the late sixteenth-century Register of Achonry are two quarters of Kilasbuig, specifically described as being “in Achonry parish”. The same holding appears under different forms in subsequent records. The Inquisition of 1616 records Carrowkillasbog and Tuorna, while the Strafford Survey records Killasbog and Turnabeagh. By comparing these names with the Down Survey and nineteenth-century records, MacCotter identified the two quarters with the later townland of Carniara.

The presence at Carniara of the substantial early ecclesiastical site described above provided the archaeological counterpart to this documentary reconstruction. MacCotter concluded:

“The actual site of Cill Easbuig must be represented by the early ecclesiastical site and possible church site in Carnyara.”

The name itself is significant. Cill Easbuig means “the Bishop’s Church”, but why the church carried that name is unknown. It may indicate an association with a bishop or episcopal lands, but no surviving source identifies a founding bishop or explains the church’s original function. The evidence does not justify describing Cill Easbuig as an episcopal centre.

MacCotter also identifies Carniara as cross-land, that is, land belonging to the church. His wider study argues that much of the ecclesiastical land found in later records of the diocese had origins before the Anglo-Norman period. This does not establish that the Carniara estate survived unchanged from the early medieval period, but it raises the possibility that its association with the church was considerably older than the surviving records.

By the late sixteenth century, therefore, Cill Easbuig was already an established place-name attached to church land in Achonry parish. The documents allow its lands to be traced and its location identified, but they do not tell us when the Bishop’s Church was established. That question takes us much further back into the ecclesiastical history of Achonry.

How Old Was Cill Easbuig?

The date at which Cill Easbuig was established is unknown. The surviving archaeology identifies Carniara as an early ecclesiastical site, but without excavation it cannot presently provide a more precise foundation date. The wider history of Achonry, however, raises the possibility that the Bishop’s Church belonged to an ecclesiastical landscape considerably older than the medieval diocese established in 1152.

Achonry itself had a much earlier history. Paul MacCotter identifies it as the chief church of Luigne Connacht, possessing the largest church estate within the territory. Traditions concerning its patron, Nath Í, place him in the early Christian period, although the surviving sources differ considerably over his chronology. By the early ninth century, at the latest, Achonry was clearly an established ecclesiastical centre associated with Nath Í and his cult.

MacCotter also argues that episcopal organisation existed within Luigne before the formal creation of the diocese. Early medieval sources contain references to bishops associated with the wider territory, although their precise relationship with the later bishops of Achonry is uncertain. Against this background, the name Cill Easbuig, the Bishop’s Church, becomes particularly interesting. The name therefore need not have originated only after Achonry became the seat of a formal territorial diocese in the twelfth century.

A useful comparison survives elsewhere within the diocese. Toomour was known as Cill Easpaig Luidhigh, the Church of Bishop Lugach, a name recorded in connection with events in the tenth century. This demonstrates that a Cill Easpaig place-name could belong to the earlier ecclesiastical landscape of the region. It does not establish that Cill Easbuig at Carniara was contemporary with Toomour or performed the same function.

Cill Easbuig could therefore predate the creation of the diocese in 1152. Whether its origins belong to the earliest centuries of Christianity in Luigne, or to a later stage in the development of the church at Achonry, cannot presently be determined. For Carniara, this remains perhaps the most important archaeological question: how far back does the Bishop’s Church actually go?

Church and O’Hara Lordship

Cill Easbuig also stood within an important secular landscape. The name Carniara, from the Irish Carn Uí Eára, means “the cairn of the O’Haras”, the ruling dynasty of Luigne Connacht during the later medieval period. Carniara has also been identified as the traditional inauguration place of the O’Hara lords. Cill Easbuig lay only around 700 metres from the inauguration site at Carn Uí Eára, and approximately 2.7 kilometres from the chief church at Achonry, placing all three sites within a relatively compact landscape.

Elizabeth Fitzpatrick, in her study of royal inauguration in Gaelic Ireland, identifies Carn Uí Eára as the place where the O’Hara of Luighne was made. Paul MacCotter likewise noted that the name Carn Uí Eára suggests the traditional inauguration place of the dynasty and referred to the surviving enclosed mound at Carniara. Archaeologist Martin A. Timoney has also identified the surviving monument as the O’Hara inauguration mound, illustrating it under that description in his 2021 study of the O’Hara landscape.

MacCotter drew particular attention to the unusual combination at Carniara of church land, the early church of Cill Easbuig and the traditional inauguration place of the O’Haras. He raised the possibility that there may have been a relationship between royal inauguration sites and the Church, although he did not pursue the question further and the nature of any such relationship remains unknown.

What Happened to the Church?

There is no surviving record describing the destruction or abandonment of Cill Easbuig, and neither the documentary nor archaeological evidence provides a date for the end of worship at Carniara. There were, however, periods of severe warfare in Leyny during which, if the church was still functioning, it would have stood within a landscape repeatedly affected by raiding and military campaigns.

One of the clearest examples occurred in 1225, during struggles for the kingship of Connacht. Rival branches of the O’Connor dynasty competed for power, drawing neighbouring Gaelic rulers and Anglo-Norman forces into the conflict. Aedh, son of Cathal Crobhdearg O’Connor, brought the Justiciar and Anglo-Norman forces into Connacht in support of his position.

The Annals of Connacht give a particularly severe account of what followed in Leyny. The forces remained at Mellick for three nights while

“plundering Leyney on every hand.”

The annalist subsequently records O’Hara making peace with the invaders for what little remained to the people of Leyny. Elsewhere in its account of the same year, the annal describes the devastation across Connacht in broader terms, stating that neither church nor lay property had escaped destruction. Although this cannot be read as evidence that every individual church was physically destroyed, it conveys the severity of the campaign.

Another major episode followed in 1256. Walter de Burgh, son of Richard de Burgh, assembled a large force during a conflict involving Fedlim O’Connor, his son Aedh and Conchobar O’Rourke. The Annals of Connacht trace de Burgh’s army through Mayo and Balla before recording that it

“passed through Leyney, which they plundered on all sides, to Achonry.”

For Cill Easbuig, this is particularly significant. Carniara lies only a short distance from Achonry, within the territory through which de Burgh’s army was operating. If the church was still functioning in 1256, its clergy, lands and surrounding population would have been exposed to the effects of the campaign. The annals do not, however, mention Cill Easbuig or record the destruction of a church at Carniara.

Churches in the region were not necessarily protected from the violence of the period. In 1261, the Annals of the Four Masters record the killing of Cathal O’Hara by the English, through the agency of Mac Feorais Bermingham. Five men of Leyny were also killed, some of them within the great church of Ballysadare. In this instance, the annals explicitly place violence within a church.

The events of 1225, 1256 and 1261 therefore provide an important context for the history of Cill Easbuig. Leyny was repeatedly affected by warfare and plundering, and ecclesiastical sites were not necessarily immune. None of these events, however, can presently be identified as the cause of the church’s abandonment. Cill Easbuig may have survived the thirteenth century and ceased functioning much later.

We simply do not know how late the church remained in use. What can be followed much more clearly is the survival of its ecclesiastical identity, preserved in the name and lands of Cill Easbuig after the church itself disappears from the written record.

Further evidence for this continuing ecclesiastical connection appears in the sixteenth-century records of the Diocese of Achonry. The diocesan register records that the Chanter, or Precentor, of Achonry Cathedral held two quarters of land known as Cill Easbaig, together with a portion of the parish tithes. These lands can be identified with Carniara. The reference is particularly significant because it places Cill Easbuig within the working ecclesiastical structure of the diocese during the episcopate of Eugene O’Hart in the later sixteenth century.

This does not prove that the church at Cill Easbuig was still functioning at that date. Ecclesiastical lands and place-names could survive long after the churches from which they originated had fallen out of use. It does, however, leave open the possibility that the church survived, or was rebuilt, considerably later than its probable early medieval origins. The church symbol subsequently shown at Carniara on the seventeenth-century Down Survey map adds further interest to that possibility.

A Church Still Marked in the Seventeenth Century?

The Down Survey of Ireland, undertaken in the 1650s following the Cromwellian conquest, was created principally to measure land for confiscation and redistribution. Its maps nevertheless preserve important evidence for the seventeenth-century landscape, including churches and other prominent features.

On the Down Survey barony map of Leyny, a cross or church symbol is marked within Carniara, recorded on the map as Carainara. The major ecclesiastical centre at Achonry is also marked with an ecclesiastical symbol. At Carniara, the symbol appears at the location of the known church site, making it very likely that the surveyors were marking Cill Easbuig.

What condition the church was in is less certain. Such a symbol cannot by itself demonstrate that the building remained an active place of worship. It might represent a standing church, a ruined church, or a recognised former church site. This distinction is particularly important because contemporary records show that Carniara remained associated with ecclesiastical land even if the church itself had ceased to function.

The Down Survey therefore provides important evidence for the later history of Cill Easbuig. By the mid-seventeenth century, the church site remained sufficiently prominent or well known to be marked on the barony map of Leyny. Whether the surveyors were recording a church still in use or the remains of an older church cannot presently be determined.

The Church Disappears, but its Lands Survive

Although we do not know when Cill Easbuig ceased to function, its name and association with church land survived for centuries. This distinction between the church itself and the property attached to it is important. A church could fall out of use while its lands continued to provide income within the organisation of the diocese.

As already seen, the late sixteenth-century Register of Achonry records two quarters of Kilasbuig in Achonry parish, while seventeenth-century records preserve the name in forms such as Carrowkillasbog and Killasbog. These records concern ecclesiastical property rather than the condition of the church itself. They therefore provide no evidence that worship was still taking place at Cill Easbuig.

By the seventeenth century Carniara was associated with the Chanter of Achonry, another name for the Precentor, one of the senior dignitaries of the cathedral chapter. The office originally related to the ordering of worship and chant within a cathedral, but it also possessed lands and revenues for its support. Carniara’s association with the Chanter therefore shows that the land continued to form part of an ecclesiastical endowment.

The older name also appears to have survived alongside Carniara. Registry of Deeds references from 1776 and 1781 pair Carniara with the forms Killaspick and Killaspeck, names consistent with the earlier Cill Easbuig. The full memorials still need to be examined before the nature of these transactions can be established, but the references indicate that a form of the old ecclesiastical name remained attached to land at Carniara into the eighteenth century.

The connection continued into the nineteenth century. In his account of the cathedral chapter of Achonry, Hubert Thomas Knox reproduced information concerning its revenues in 1833. The entry for the Precentorship records:

“The townland of Carnyara in Achonry P. No cure. £92.”

Carniara was therefore an endowment of the Precentor of Achonry, valued at £92. The words “No cure” are significant. A cure in this context meant responsibility for the pastoral care of a parish or congregation. The entry records income attached to the Precentorship, but no pastoral cure at Carniara.

The documentary evidence therefore reveals a considerable continuity of ecclesiastical landholding. The church itself disappears from the written record, but its name and lands survive. Long after the history of Cill Easbuig as a place of worship had been lost, Carniara remained financially and administratively connected with the church of Achonry.

Conclusion

Cill Easbuig is one of the least understood ecclesiastical sites within the historic diocese of Achonry. At Carniara, the substantial remains of an early ecclesiastical enclosure survive on the ground, together with the recorded sites of a possible church and graveyard. Documentary evidence allows this site to be identified with Cill Easbuig, the Bishop’s Church.

Its origins remain unknown. Cill Easbuig may have belonged to the ecclesiastical landscape that existed before the formal creation of the diocese of Achonry in 1152, but there is presently no evidence that allows the church to be assigned to a particular century. Nor do we know when it ceased to function. The warfare that affected Leyny during the thirteenth century provides one possible historical context, but no surviving source records the destruction of the church at Carniara.

What survives more clearly is its ecclesiastical identity. By the late sixteenth century, the two quarters of Cill Easbaig were recorded among the lands of the Chanter, or Precentor, of Achonry Cathedral, demonstrating that Carniara remained directly connected with the cathedral establishment. The Down Survey marked the church site in the mid-seventeenth century, and in 1833 Carniara was still recorded as an endowment of the Precentor of Achonry, although with “No cure” attached.

There is therefore an unusual contrast at Carniara. The history of the church itself has largely disappeared, yet its enclosure survives and its name and lands remained identifiable long afterwards. Enough evidence survives to restore Cill Easbuig to the ecclesiastical history of Achonry, but its most important questions remain unanswered: when was the Bishop’s Church established, what role did it perform, and when did it cease to function?

The documentary evidence may have taken us close to its limit. Further answers are now most likely to come from the surviving archaeology at Carniara.

Sources and References

Primary and Archival Sources

• Annals of Connacht, ed. And trans. A. Martin Freeman, entries for 1225 and 1256. CELT, University College Cork.

• Annals of the Four Masters, ed. And trans. John O’Donovan, entry for 1261. CELT, University College Cork.

• Register of Achonry, late sixteenth century, reproduced and discussed in Liam Swords, “A Sixteenth-Century Register of Achonry,” Collectanea Hibernica 39–40 (1997–98), pp. 7–22, particularly pp. 17–18.

• Inquisition of 1616, National Archives of Ireland, MS 2163.

• Down Survey of Ireland, Barony of Leyny, Co. Sligo, c. 1656–58.

Secondary Sources and Archaeological Records

• MacCotter, Paul. “Diocese of Achonry: Church, Land, and History.” Peritia 24–25 (2013–14), pp. 241–265.

• Swords, Liam. A People’s Church: The Diocese of Achonry: From the Sixth to the Seventeenth Century. Dublin: The Columba Press, 2013, particularly p. 136.

• National Monuments Service, Archaeological Survey of Ireland. Carniara, Co. Sligo, records SL032-141001 to SL032-141006.

• O’Conor, Kieran D. “The Archaeology of Carnyara Townland.” Carniara (2005).

• Timoney, Martin A. “Rathscanlan and Ballyara, Co. Sligo, an Ancestral Place of Ó hEára Riabhach.” Sligo Field Club Journal 7 (2021), pp. 77–100.

• Hubert Thomas Knox, Notes on the Early History of the Dioceses of Tuam, Killala and Achonry.

• Transport Infrastructure Ireland. LiDAR survey data, 2010–11.