Clare Island Survey — History and Archaeology. 2 37 



a penitent or an anchorite; it is barely large enough for a man to lie in, and 

 is too small for an inclusus such as occupied the little cells at St. Doulough's 

 and elsewhere. 



Monuments. — Outside the chancel to the south is a slab with a small 

 shallow basin from which three cuts radiate irregularly. In the west wall of 

 the enclosure beyond the modern Eoman Catholic church is a fine pillar-stone 

 11 feet high and 18 inches by 9 inches thick ; the south face is engraved with 

 the outline of a long Latin cross neatly cut. Besides the O'Maille tomb there 

 are no monuments of any great age, though we read of the burials of Donall, 

 Murchad, and Dermot O'Mhaille in the thirteenth century. Whether the 

 famous Grama was really buried here and not (as tradition on the mainland 

 says) at Burrishoole Abbey, we have no decisive evidence. Probability rather 

 favours her burial at the last or Doonagh. 1 "A skull with golden earrings 

 in its ears !" was long shown at Cliara Abbey as hers, and Caesar Otway in his 

 somewhat unreliable " Tour in Connaught " (1839) tells a wonderful story of 

 how, shortly after his visit to the island, " a speculative Scotsman " sailed 

 round the coast clearing every churchyard of its stacks of bones to make into 

 manure ; among the rest Crania's skull and its earrings disappeared. Even 

 Otway allows the rest of the tale, how one tooth and earring were found in a 

 boiled turnip in Ayrshire later on, to be " rather apocryphal," and he inclines 

 to believe that the skull, with its earrings (which still continued to be shown), 

 was the former one, if not the genuine relic. 2 



None of the inscribed tombstones date before the last century. In the 

 chancel are those of Bridget (Bratch), wife of Edmond O'Malley, died 

 1802, aged 48 years ; and Thomas O'Malley, 1807, aged 34, put up by his 

 brother Michael. In the graveyard are still later tombs — Thady Malley, died 

 1826, aged 84, put up by his sons, John, Anthony, and Michael ; John O'Malley, 

 died 1828, aged 48 ; another John, died 1842, aged 51 : also, of other families, 

 Walter Barrett, died 1837, aged 19, by Peter Barrett, and Edmond Toole, died 

 1837, aged 21, by his father, Charles ; all the others were later than 1870. 



Grania Uaile's Castle (0. S. 85). 



The latest of the ancient buildings on Cliara is the peel tower beside the 

 little harbour at the south-east corner of the island. 3 It derives its interest 

 rather from its reputed builder, " the Dark Lady of Doona," Grania Uaile, 



1 Her only recorded residence is at Carriclcogolhy or Rockfleet near Burrishoole, but her father 

 Doharra O'Mhaille is said to have held Cliara in 1588. 



2 Loc. cit., p. 301. 



3 The illustrations in Caesar Otway's "Tour in Connaught" (about 1838), p. 298, and the 

 Journal of the Roy. Soc. Ant. Ir., xxv, pp. 244-5, are very poor, and the natural features too low. 



