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Clonmacnois

Clonmacnois is a ruined monastery that dates back to the 7th century. It is located in the middle of the country approximately halfway between Galway and Dublin. We stopped there on our drive to Dublin. The ruins are from the 9th century and later. Nothing remains of the earliest structures because they were constructed of wood. In the 9th century, the building materials shifted from wood to stone.

Clonmacnois is on a spectacular site overlooking the River Shannon which you can see in some of the pictures below. The monastery was founded by Saint Ciaran and he definitely had excellent aesthetic taste in picking the site. The unfortunate part about being on the River Shannon was that it made the monastery very accessible to both native and foreign raiders who frequently sacked it.

The most notable surviving treasures from Clonmacnois are the carved high crosses, some examples of which you can see in the pictures below.