O'Hanlon — On St. Malachys "Monasterium lb raceme." 113 



community of monks, in the city of Connor, it is not certain that all 

 of these fled with him to the south of Ireland.* It is even possible 

 that the religious accompanying him thither may have found refuge 

 in other monasteries, so that only a comparatively small number settled 

 "with liim in the " monasterium Ibracense." The buildings on Illaun 

 a Teampull were evidently fashioned after older structures of the kind 

 in that part of the country. They convey the idea of an oratory for 

 prayer in common, with detached cells near it, and used as houses for 

 lodging the monks. The quadrangular building, however, may not 

 have been an oratory. How many such dwellings were grouped to- 

 gether at this place cannot probably now be known. Even the extent 

 of surface over which they spread, or of land attached for maintain- 

 ance of the community, may baffle further inquiry. Around Church 

 Island the sea-sands are shifting, and the Atlantic Ocean, rolling over 

 or beside them, may have effected great changes in course of time, 

 either by levelling land surfaces beneath the waves, or by causing 

 them to accumulate, as in so many other cases around our shores. It 

 is likely, however, from the rude and peculiar style of the existing 

 structural objects, that these must have stood there, and in a much 

 more perfect condition, before the Anglo-JNTorman invasion of Ireland. 

 The earliest published and traced maps of this part of Ireland seen 

 by the writer are too incorrect and imperfect to furnish any clue 

 regarding the relative position or connexion of Illaun a Teampull with 

 the mainland. On the Petty Down survey map representing the 

 barony of Iveragh, in the county g£ Kerry, as copied by General Yal- 

 lancey,t there is a drawing of Cunny Island — which seems to be 

 represented by the present Beg Inish — of Lamb Island to the north 

 of it, and of a small nameless island to the south of Cunny Island. 

 This island, unnamed, and without any antiquarian object marked on 

 it, seems intended to represent the present Church Island ; and thus, 

 about the middle of the seventeenth century, this small insulated spot 

 does not appear to have been joined to the mainland at any point. 

 All the aforesaid islands lie nearly midway between Valencia Island 

 and the seaward promontory of Caher parish, at the entrance to 

 Begnis Harbour, J and much as they are at present represented on the 

 more correct modern Ordnance Survey Maps of Kerry county. 



* In Mabillon's Annales Ordinis S. Benedicti. Tonnes vi., Lib. lxxvii., s. xlv., 

 p. 315, it is said that St. Malachy brought 130 brethren with him to Minister. In 

 the Benedictine edition of his Life by St. Bernard, the same number is said to have 

 been under his jurisdiction, although in a marginal note at this passage "Alias 

 viginti" is found. In the MS. Vita S. Malachite, among the Trinity College Library 

 MSS., we read " centum xxti." 



f The original is preserved in the Imperial Library at Paris. The packet, or 

 ship, in which some of the Petty maps happened to have been sent from Ireland to 

 England, was captured in the Channel by a French privateer. 



X See the large bound volume of Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, "Waterford, Cork 

 and Kerry Maps, No. 122, at present preserved in the Public Record Office, Dublin. 



