Just down a little path from the well at St. Cumin's Well (County Mayo) is an overgrown churchyard. Considering how well-kept the well and mass station is I was appalled to see how bad the churchyard was.
The church itself is built of cyclopean blocks of stone, with a lovely round-topped doorway in the west wall. There is a blocked up opening in the south wall, which was presumably an earlier door. There is a single round-topped window in the south wall and one in the east wall. The north wall is plain.
The church is not aligned east-west, but more towards the ESE. At 2 o'clock the sun wasn't shining on the west wall of the church.
In the graveyard are two slender standing stones about 1.8m tall. Between these are several low slabs in a line. This is said to be the burial place of St. Cumin. After pulling back the grass around the tallest of the little slabs I was surprised to find that it was a cross slab. The design is quite intricately carved in false relief and is quite hard to explain, but it is basically a cross with expanded terminals in an oval. There are also two 'sun' motifs above this and a flower design below it.
All Sites Visited On 25th October 2004 « Previous Site Next Site »
A Random Selection of Nearby Monuments
Ballyellin And Tomdarrach (Co. Carlow) | Clongeen (Co. Wexford) | Killeenemer (Co. Cork) |
Gurranebawn (Co. Kerry) | Knockmullin 1 (Co. Leitrim) | Ardristan 2 (Co. Carlow) |