churches historical killaloe

St. Flannan's Oratory in the cathedral grounds is a well-preserved stone-roofed Romanesque church which dates from the 12th century....

St. Molua's Oratory: in the grounds of the Catholic church on the hill-top may be found another example of early Irish church building. This is the small oratory of St. Lua or Molua from whom Killaloe got its name. Only the chancel is roofed, with a high pitched roof of stone. Of the nave nothing remains except some walling. The oratory, originally on Friar's Island about 1km downstream from Killaloe, was removed to its present location in 1929, when the raising of the river level thr...

The cathedral was founded about 1185 by Donal More O'Brien on the site of an earlier Romanesque church, the doorway of which is preserved in the south-west corner of the Cathedral. The Cathedral is in the form of a cross, and has three narrow lancet windows in the east gable. Beside the Romanesque door near the main entrance is one of the few stones in the country with a Viking runic inscription; it is unique in that it also has the same inscription in Ogham asking for a prayer for Thorgrim wh...

The cathedral of St Flannan, on the west bank of the river, close to the bridge, dates from the 13th century. It is a simple building without aisles but with north and south transepts and a low bell tower where transepts, nave and chancel join to form the usual cross. The church is of sandstone in a variety of shades. Immediately inside the entrance, on the right, a rich Romanesque doorway (taken from an earlier and, it is said, finer church on the same site) frames a window on the southern s...

In St Flannan's Catholic Church grounds it eh oratory of St Lua, probalby 1,000 to 1,200 years old - here since 1930 when it was brought from Friar's Island as the Shannon scheme threatened to submerge it. This elevated site once housed Kincora, the palace of the Dal Cais clan, notably King Brian Boru and his descendants, the O'Briens. The Cathedral of the Church of Ireland and, in its grounds , an oratory which has a high -pitched roof, a barrel vaulted ceiling of stone with a croft or...