The walk down to this church from the road above is delightful, even in a gale. The route is inistially via an ancient sunken trackway and then down across steep fields. The churchyard looks modern, because of the wall surrounding the graveyard, but the church ruins are much older: probably 12th Century. All that remains of the structure are the foundations and one small section of wall that reaches 3m high.
A couple of things in the graveyard caught my attention. The first is a huge stone-cut font or water trough that stands just inside the gate. Sadly one side of the 1m square basin has been broken off. The second item is a pair of stones at the far end of the graveyard from the gate. These are either very early grave markers or a pair of standing stones. If the are gravestones then they are very old and quite large - one is also on the wrong alignment.
The church stands on the top of a mound in the bottom of a small side valley to the main one. The river Dodder runs past below to the west. The whole location has the sense of being very old.
There are references to the name of the church having been perverted from Kilsentan (The Church of Sentan: an early monk), which is possible, but with the rich list of associated names in the area (Maeve, the Dagda et al) I think that it is more likely to be the common renaming of Ainne or Anu the Celtic goddess.
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A Random Selection of Nearby Monuments
 Clonenagh (Co. Laois) |  Knocklisheen Beg (Co. Carlow) |  Kilvarnet (Co. Sligo) |
 Cormac's Chapel (Co. Tipperary) |  Whitechurch (Co. Dublin) |  Toureen Peacaun (Co. Tipperary) |
