From a newspaper article in the Southern Star
by Sam Kingston
Saturday 4th November 2000
COUNTY Cork has only two round towers, the more famous one is at Cloyne and the lesser known one is at Kinneigh, which is near Castletown-Kinneigh, just north of Enniskeane in West Cork, and lately this ‘tower has been taken over as a national monument by the Office of Public Works from the Church of Ireland Representative Body and which is presently engaged in the difficult and expensive work of restoring it.
This has involved, as our photo shows, the erection of elaborate scaffolding
which was itself a very difficult operation and it even attracted the attention
of vandals who climbed up and tried to steal the bell from the belfry but the
attempt, fortunately, failed.
Previous to this, a local committee had done great work in clearing the ivy and
other growth from the base of the tower but it was felt that the structure was
in danger of falling. Also a few years ago an interesting article on the history
of the tower was contributed to the Ballineen and Enniskeane Heritage Group’s
journal by a local man, Sam Kingston of Munigave, Castletown-Kinneigh, and which
we now produce as follows -
The monastery at Kinneigh was founded by St. Mocholmóg in the year 619,
according to the “Annals of Cork.” It was situated about half a mile west of the
present site of the Round Tower. Very little of its history is known and only a
fragment of the walls of the old building remains. But the wall or fence that
surrounded the monastery grounds, enclosing about 16 acres, still exists and the
Castle Rock was within the monastery grounds. Within the grounds was an old
cemetery and another part of the grounds was known as the “Abhalgort” or
Orchard.
The old monastery, cemetery and orchard was very near the spot where Denis J.
Nyhan’s farm now stands and “The Castle Rock” is in John Nyhan’s farm west of
Denis J. Nyhan’s farm.
A tower was to be on the
Castle Rock we were told but when the Abbot was able to chip the rock with the
heel of his shoe he thought it was not a sound foundation for a tower, so he
turned it down. The Kinneigh Monastery was also the Cathedral of the Dioceses of
Kinneigh, which had eight parishes.
There is an entry in the “Annals of the Four Masters” concerning Kinneigh under
the year AD 750 it says "Forbasach, son of Maeluidhir Abbot of large Church at
Kinneigh died.”
Maeluidhir was a son of Sealbhach, the king or chief of the Cineal Laoghaire, a fact which reminds us that in those early days Abbots and other church dignitaries were often members of the ruling families. This custom of placing tribal relations in important religious positions was not considered to make for the ultimate advantage of the Church as It sometimes led to nepotism, or at least to patronage. We do not know if Kinneigh was one of the monastic schools, but it is probable that it did good work in this direction like many others of its kind.
This monastery was destroyed by the Danes in one of their raids, probably that of the year A.D. 916, when they settled along the Bandon river. The monastery was rebuilt later at a site farther east, where stands the Round Tower, which was itself erected in the year 1014. What is now known as Kinneigh Round Tower stands in the townland of Sleenogue about half a mile east of the old monastery.
All traces of the monastery here are gone and only a few names remain to testify to the former sanctity of this place. Nearby is a crossroad called Croisin-na-naomh, or the little cross of the saints, and part of the road, which leads, from the old monastery at Kinneigh to the Round Tower is called Bothrin-na-naomh, or the lane of the saints.
This monastery continues to be the Cathedral of the dioceses of Kinneigh until it was joined to the Dioceses of Cork at the synod of Kells in 1152. The parishes of Kinneigh Dioceses were Kinneigh, Faranlobus, Ballymoney, Desertserges, Murragh, Garryvoe (Kilcolman), Ballymoden and part of what is now Kilmichael parish.
Very little is known about the monastery which was built in Sleinogue in the late 900’s near the present Round Tower which was built in 1014 by St. Mocholmóg who was the Abbot at that time. The tower is unique in that it is the only hexagonally based tower in Ireland, from about 20 feet it is round to the top, it is six storeys high each about 12 feet. Each hexagon is about 10.5 feet across the base and about 65 feet in circumference at the foundation, which is a solid clay slate rock about 45 yards west of where the old monastery stood. The walls are about six feet wide at the bottom of the basement and about three feet wide at the top of the tower. It is about 9 feet across the base and about 5 feet across at the top inside and outside about 23 feet across at the foundation, tapering to 10 feet across the top, and it is about 80 feet high.
The round portion batters evenly to a little below the top, the final five feet being an evident later addition irregularly built and projecting a little at some points. This probably dates from the installation of the bell about 1856 and is reached by ladders from floors to floor inside.
At the top the bell is hung from two girders, which are set on blocks of granite on top of the wall. The bell is embossed ‘J. Murphy Founder (Foundry?) Dublin 1856: with a devise of a harp with a crown above it and shamrocks below. The top five feet of the wall is very rough built with numerous holes on the inside and is an obvious later addition with a clear line of division between it and the original masonry.
The top storey is open at the top and there is no evidence of it being ever roofed. The door is about 16 feet above the ground facing northeast and is near the top and centre of one of the hexagons at the first floor level. This floor is peculiarly constructed with slate flags having a well hole in the centre, which a flag covered, and formed into a chamber below the level of the door.
The walling of the foundation consists of large rough stones. The materials are in good preservation. The upper portion of the tower is dilapidated and some portions of the stones in the upper part are in a falling state, the lower portion has stones much displaced by the roots of ivy. The stones vary in length from one to five feet, and in thickness from three to twelve inches arranged without vertical points, but close bedded and very well worked on lodges of external face of tower. This Round Tower is a fine specimen of the use of the slate-stone, which abounds in the neighbourhood.
The stone used is well worked, and is closely dressed on the edges of the beds both in the circular work of the upper walls and in the splayed angles of the lower portion of the tower. The doorway is square headed with the jams very slightly inclined, the lintels a well squared stone, about 5 feet long and about 10 inches high at the outer face, with three more stones in depth behind it. On the inside the stone above the lintel projects a little from the wall. There are iron door hangings on the inside face with a large rectangular hole possibly for a bolt. The windows are all square-headed and small. Those in the second, third and fifth storeys have parallel jams, which is quite abnormal, while that in the fourth storey has jams slightly inclined.
The tower was damaged by lightning a few years previous to 1837, and in the south side is a fissure from which several stones had fallen. The South Munster Antiquarian Society visited and made researches in Kinneigh Round Tower in 1841 which satisfied them that it had never been used for sepulchral purposes such as they believed its sister structure of Cloyne to have been.
The building of Kinneigh Round Tower is linked to the Battle of Clontarf as follows: Cian or Kean who gave Enniskeane its name was married to Sabh, the eldest daughter of Brian Boru, set about conquering the kingdom from Donnell, who was married to a second daughter of Brian Boru. Donnell passed through Kinneigh while fleeing before Cian. The tower was then in the course of construction, and Donnell invoked the blessing of Saint Colman.
Cian came on afterwards and allowed his men to eat the workmen’s provisions and drink their milk whereupon they were cursed by Saint Colman and duly overthrown by Donnell in a battle near Coppeen. When the tower was being built some tell us that it was scaffolded up inside and others say it was done like the pyramids of Egypt by mounding earth up against the built wall and rolling the building material up from the outside and when they were finished all the earth was removed.
The tower is not state property, but is vested in the Church of Ireland. However the general vote of the Representative Body is that the tower be taken over by the Office of Public Works as a national monument. A committee was formed a few years ago and it has great work done such as clearing off birds’ nests, ivy, etc. Ivy limbs as thick as your arm grew between the stones, and if they were torn off some of the stones could come as well and make the building very dangerous.
The ivy was burned off with brushwood killer and diesel oil. The committee also secured the four ladders, which lead to the top of the tower at the inside with concrete and filled holes that were badly torn by birds building nests over the years. The ladder from the ground to the door at the outside was removed as a safety precaution.
Two engineers, father and son, who visited Kinneigh Tower and did a survey on it were impressed by its general good condition. They told me, if scaffolding was erected, the dead ivy removed, the holes filled and the tower pointed, it should last for hundreds of years. These two men would agree with surveyors of the past that the wall at the top, which is 3 feet thick, is too narrow to allow the tower having been much higher, and there is no evidence that it ever was.
After the Reformation, nearing the end of the 16th century, the Catholic Church at Kinneigh, which stood where the old cemetery is now, was taken over by the Protestant Community for their own use, leaving the Catholics without any church. It was some years after that the old church in Castletown was built. It stood north of the present, the cross on the north wall of the church gate marks the entrance to the old church. The present Church of Ireland in Kinneigh was built in 1856 and the stones of the old church were used to build the wall around the present old cemetery.
Just north of Kinneigh you have Saint Patrick’s Well, where Rounds are made on Saint Patrick’s Day, and a few hundred yards east of that is Carraig-An-Aifrin, a Penal times Mass Rock. It is at the northern side of an old laneway that runs west from Joe Moore’s yard.
The Kinneigh area produced some outstanding sons such as the Fenian, Ricard O’Sullivan Burke who was born in Clounyreague in 1838, the Carroll brothers from Clounyreague and Thomas Wood from The Paddock who brought all Ireland honours in athletics at the turn of the last century, Canon John O’Mahony, the great historian who was born in Ballyvelone West where the Collins family now live and who did so much for the farmers during the buying out of their land from the landlords, Jeremiah O’Mahony, the famous historian and school teacher from Castletown, and Jeremiah O’Mahony from The Paddock who lost his life during the fight for our freedom and it is after him the local G.A.A. pitch is named.
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