The Round Hill of Clane - St Ailbe - The site of the monastery - Newtown Clane
Older residents tell us that Clane was regularly flooded by the river Liffey prior to the building of the Poulaphuca Dam in 1941. The floodwaters came up to the cottages on the Naas road, drowning pigs which were housed in the back gardens and extended across the Church parks towards the Boys' school and into back yard along the Main Street. Looking back into medieval times and earlier, it is not difficult to imagine that in time of extra bad flooding, such as might have occurred perhaps only a few times a century, that only three or four areas of the village might have stood high enough to escape the flooding. These are the Village Green - crowned by the old graveyard and church ruins; the Main Street which falls off steeply into the yards of the premises which line it on both sides, causing it to resemble an up - turned boat; the elevate centre of the convent field opposite Liffey lawns; the site of Clane Hall - known traditionally as Coiseanna Hill and probably meaning 'beside the marsh', and lastly, the site of the Franciscan Priory and Abbey Cemetery, which is on a slightly elevated site compare to the surrounding fields. Even to the present, the Naas Road occasionally floods when the stream overflows its banks below the new Park, while in the late fifties , the townsland of Capdoo Commons flooded up from the Liffey following a very wet November, and for a few days the Dublin Road ran through a sea of water extending to both left and right and running for some hundreds of yards eastwards from the village. The road itself remained only just above the level of the flood because of the foresight of the eighteenth century engineers in building it so high above the field level through the stretch in question.
It would appear therefore that areas permanently unaffected by flooding might well have been at a premium. This, and the fact that Clane has been animportant area of settlement, at least from early Christian times, must singleout these areas as being of great importance in understanding this settlementand how it developed. If one is to believe the mythology and the earlyrecorded tradition, Clane had an importance going back to pagan times.
In the Annals of MacFirbish, it is recorded before going into battle, the Leinstermen traditionally assembled on the Crocaun Claonta, translated as 'The Round Hill of Clane'. Their belief was that in so doing they could only meet with success. Where this hill was is anybody's guess. There are two areas in Clane bearing the name 'Crocaun'; one a townsland on the Prosperous Road, which, incongruously, is completely flat; the other is the hill where Peter McCreeery's training stables are situated - supporting evidence, you might say. The Fair Green hill itself must be regarded as a distinct possibility, and perhaps Coiseanna Hill. Other pagan connections are seen in the Bullan Stone on the banks of the stream opposite the entrance to Abbeylands, supposed to be connected with Druidic sacrifices, and the supposed burial mounds at Clane and Mainham, reputed to be the resting places of Mesgegra - first century King of Leinster, and his wife Buan, after the depredation caused by the fierce Conal Cearnach, Champion of Ulster. The account is in the "Forbais Eadair" (the Siege of Howth), an ancient historic tale.
Whatever its earlier origins, the future of Clane as a settlement was determined when St. Ailbe of Emily built a monastery here in the early part of the sixth century. This monastery was probably demolished when the Franciscans (Norman's) built their establishment here in 1258. Throughout its long history, very little is recorded of the Celtic Monastery, apart from the fact that it was plundered by the Danes in 1035, but the raiders were overtaken and slaughtered by Donnochadh, son of Domhnall. No doubt the settlement had an entirely different shape in those days. The broad main street with its well aligned business and residential premises bears the stamp of 18th century town planning and was already in existence on a map of 1752. In early monastic settlements, we are told that there was no distinction between the religious and secular life and the local community, which would have had a clan structure, all lived together and prayed together and worked the soil, which under the Irish system, was held in common. The community would probably have been housed in round thatched huts of wattle and daub. One would have expected that a monastery like that of Clane would have left us a stone church in the Hiberno-romanesque style, with perhaps a round tower like that of Teachdoo or Kildare; sadly none remains. Certainly the monastery at Clane was large and important, if we are only to judge by the fact that that a General Synod of the church in Ireland was held here in 1162, seven years before the coming of the Normans, and was attended by St. Laurence O'Toole of Dublin and Gelassus of Armagh, together with many abbots. The business of the Synod was that no one should practice as a lecturer in theology who not been trained at Armagh, a decision which further confirmed the newly established Primacy of Armagh.
Where was this monastery situated? As pointed out earlier, there wereonly a few possibilities. The Green, which is the most elevated site and whichhas a tradition of Christian burial. A church ruins of the Post Reformation must indeed be the most likely site if it were not so limited in area. A number of years ago, a superficial examination was made to see if the convent field, to the rear of Dillon's, might not have provide an extension of this site. There seemed to be some indication of this. During the last two years, the field has been meadowed for the first time in living memory, and some very interesting phenomena have come to light. On each occasion, the elevated portion of the field developed an extensive pattern of circles of much darker grass in the after grass. There were ten complete circles with diameters of between five and ten metres. There were also some semi-circles and larger curves. An, as yet, slight investigation of the soil beneath showed that whereas the field as a whole has an extraordinarily dark, soft, peaty loam, the soil is remarkably different under the circles, being distinctly gray and more gritty. This year, an opportunity was taken to map the field at a scale of 1:100 before the contrast had faded. There would seem to be strong indications of ancient habitation and a more professional examination would seem to be appropriate. This is not the only point of interest attaching to this particular field.
It is marked on the map of 1752 as 'Maudlin Newtown'. The word 'Maudlin, where it occurs in place names is reputed to relate to Magdalen, and is regarded as indicating a hospital or refuge for wayfarers or vagabonds, such as would have been run by monks. In the confiscation of the Franciscan lands, a field of four acres is listed 'in the Newtown of Clane'. A connection with the Norman Franciscans could well imply an earlier connection with the earlier Celtic Monastery. Even the later history is of interest in that it was part of the glebe lands of the Protestant Church which Archdeacon Sherlock referred to as 'Economy Lands' and claimed that they were the remnants which were close to the village and held in common by the Portreeves and Commons of Clane, and later set out annually by the Vestry - strictly to residents of Clane. Such lands were often sub-divided by marker stones, not hedges. There were about twelve granite stones about the field with conical tops and rectangular bases set about eighteen inches in the ground. Mr. Ned Ennis confirms that the land was set out from stone to stone according to a tradition which he received from his late father. Unfortunately the stones vanished only this summer. Similar stones turned up in the last few years at the wall at Woods' bank on the Kilcock Road and also in Clane townsland, south of the 'Orchard' in Loughbollard. Lastly, the same convent field is also the site of an old well, known as 'Fr. Batty's Well', reputed to hold a cure for toothache. It is no exaggeration to say we are walking on history.
Reproduced from "Le Chéile" by kind permission