The Great theft of Kell's Ancient Priory

I was out wandering today 

(Aug 2026) in Navan, 

the County town of Meath and I came across a 

Tourist Information Board.

Apparently the great Kell's Priory ruins, one of Ireland's largest monastic settlements at Kilkenny, has been stolen.

It would appear that a large number of personnel, much machinery and a veritable convoy of Low-loaders were involved in stealing and surreptitiously moving this colossal ancient monastic fortress from Kilkenny and replanting it in Meath, most probably in the dead of night.

There is a €10,000 REWARD offered for any information leading to its recovery.

Checkpoints have been set up on all major arterial roads leading into and out of Meath but it is feared the horse has long since bolted.

A party of nine disheveled and disoriented American Tourists were rescued from a field in Athboy suffering from mild hypothermia while searching for the Priory and carried to Drogheda Regional Hospital by Air Ambulance.

If you have any information regarding the theft of the ancient Priory please alert your local Gardaí at 112 or 999.

Thank you for your assistance.

Baurnadomeeny Wedge Tomb, Tipperary

 Baurnadomeeny 
Wedge Tomb

From my perspective Baurnadomeeny Wedge Tomb in rural Tipperary has to be the most beautiful, captivating, enchanting and delightful Wedge Tomb I have ever come across.

With its rural location, mountain backdrop, many Kerbstones, almost untouched condition and lack of tourists it's a wonderful example of its type.

Wedge Tombs are called such precisely because they are Wedge shaped.

 

They were probably the very last style of megalithic burial chambers built by neolithic peoples before the transition to the Bronze age and simple Cist style burials.

It is perhaps likely that as the peoples who immigrated into Ireland during the Bronze age assimilated that they occasionally adopted the existing burial rituals and also built Wedge Tombs for a short period.

Who knows?

There is a single Standing stone on the roadside at the approach to the Wedge Tomb, yet another reminder of times long since past.

About a kilometre from the Wedge Tomb I went looking for a recorded Cist and found a small circular Cairn of stones beneath which I presume lies the Cist itself.

There seems to have been quite a lot of activity during prehistory in this area and it is a very pretty location indeed, well worth taking the time to visit.

Penn Museum - Megalithic Tombs of Ireland

 

Keep the wheels turning.

Arkle the greatest Steeplechaser of all time and Clonmethan, Dublin

 Arkle the greatest Steeplechaser of all time 
and Clonmethan Church ruins.

I know nothing about Race horses but I came across Saint Mary's Church ruins at Clonmethan by chance and wandered in.

The Legend of Arkle

Both the breeder and trainer of Arkle are laid to rest in the grounds here.

 

That in a Nutshell is Clonmethan's connection to Arkle.

There is a nice contemporary memorial to the dead from the locality who perished in WWI.

At some time in antiquity this location housed a substantial Monastery however all such indications of its presence have long since been subsumed into the soil.

The Church was built in 1818 according to a plaque on the wall.

It was built by the "Board of First Fruit" a Church of Ireland organisation which funded many of these type of Churches from contributions taken existing Churches.

The basic layout is fairly standardised throughout Ireland and they were built to the specifications laid down by the Board of First Fruit.

Not far from the Church entrance is an old Post Office Wall box.

It is an Edward VII box. 

Most of these Wall Boxes were marked with the initials of the reigning Monarch at the time of their installation, in this case King Edward VII. 

King Edward VII is also a decent Cigar too if you like Cigars!

Further down the box are the initials SE.

This box was repurposed after independence to the first name of the newly (somewhat) independent Ireland called Saorstát Éireann - literal translation; Free State Ireland.

There was a huge lack of Ironmongers, Foundrys, equipment, material and tradespeople so the Government initially just restamped many of these "Imperial" Wall boxes and left them "in situ".

The Letterbox Study Group

Thankfully these delightful little reminders of history 

are still dotted all about Ireland.

I have come across a few of them stamped with the SE monicker 

however they are few and far between, a little rarer than average.

Placenames Database of Ireland

Saint-Marys-Church-Buildings of Ireland

failteromhat.com/Griffiths Valuation

Nearby there are old Iron entrance gates which appear to say 1928 Roogy.

I have no idea whatsoever what this eludes to.

Keep the wheels turning.

Friends of Clonmethan

First use of Ether as an Anesthetic in Ireland and Kilsharvan Church ruins, Meath

 First use of Ether 

as an Anaesthetic in Ireland

There is an old game called "Ten Steps from Kevin Bacon."

Basically after being given a random word you have 9 connections from that word to connect a word directly to the actor Kevin Bacon.

My posts seem to be getting somewhat similar in their headings, however thankfully they are generally  describing the ninth step in the process.

And so it is with the first use of Ether as an anaesthetic in Ireland and Kilsharvan Church ruins and graveyard in County Meath.

Medicalindependent.ie

History-of-Anaesthesia-in-Ireland

Irish Times - An 18-year-old girl was the first in Ireland to benefit from pain-free surgery

Irish History.com - Kilsharvan

Placenames Database of Ireland _ Kilsharvan

Dictionary of Irish Biography

Dimunitive of Searbháin

Meath History Hub - Kilsharvan Meath

On January 1st 1847 (coincidentally Black 47) John McDonnell 

carried out the first surgery in Ireland and quite possibly anywhere outside the U.S.A. or England

using ether as an aesthetic, amputating the arm of 18 year old Mary Kane.

He died at his home in Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin in 1892 

and is buried at Kilsharvan graveyard.

The graveyard at Kilsharvan dates from the 13th century 

while the Church ruins are of a later date.

The window tracery is reminiscent of many later Gothic style Churches of the continental religious orders.

 The rounded arch entranceways and Sandstone blocks beside the windows however are suggestive of earlier Romanesque Churches and may well have been incorporated into the later structure and ruins that sit there now.

The Church was known as "the Church of the bitter tongued" named such 

after John the Baptist apparently.

I had no idea myself that John the Baptist was a bitter chap 

but you learn something new every day.

 

Keep the wheels turning.