monastic sites around ballinasloe portumna

A twelfth-century cathedral (St. Brendan's) with thirteenth-century extensions. Despoiled in the sixteenth century, it was clumsily restored at various times afterwards and now serves as the Protestant parish church of Clonfert. The carved decoration, inside and out, is of exceptional quality, and the great west doorway ranks as the masterwork of Irish Romanesque art. Built in warm-toned sandstone, it is composed of six orders (the seventh, innermost order in limestone is a fifteenth-century...