Westjiopp — Ancient Churches in Co, Limerick. 



331 



and Aghadoe, so that the inhand cathedral ruled churches near the 

 Lakes of Killarney, ninety miles away, and others among the spiked 

 cliffs and towering mountains of Corcaguiney, on the extreme edge of 

 the land. Every deanery, and almost every parish, is misconstructed 

 on the same bad principle — rarely, indeed, is there a centre to any of 

 them. The only discoverable rule appears to be that " the centre is 

 at the circumference." 



The oldest tribal arrangements (where tlie Ui Cathbar and Ui 

 Corra lay in tlie west, with the Gebtini of Askeaton, whose name, 

 Eas (or Inis) Geibhtine, is their monument ; the Huamorian clan of 

 Asail lay round Dromassell, or Tory Hill, and the Martini round 

 Emly) are too ancient to have affected the late mediaeval divisions. 



The old states — Uaithne Cliach, Wetheney, or Owney ; Aes Grein, 

 Deisbeg, and Atharlach, or Aherloe — were included in the county, but 

 were parts of the See of Emly. I, therefore, prefer to take the 

 artificial, but definite and fairly stable, division of the County Limerick 

 as the base of this survey. I would (as in the case of the Clare 

 churches)^ have taken the baronies as sub-divisions, did not the parishes 

 in many cases lie in two, sometimes even in three, baronies.^ Accor- 

 dingly, I am compelled to take the deaneries for sub-divisions ; they 

 fonn a natural grouping, and even still retain some trac€ of having 

 been founded on tribal, and, therefore, at one time, rational grounds. 



III. The Deaneries. — Those of Limerick Bishoprick are first 

 dealt with. They are (1) Limerick, (2) Adare, (3) Eathkeale, (4) 

 Ardagh, (5) Eallingarry, and (6) Kilmallock. AVe can then give the 

 churches in (7) Owney, (8) Grene, and (9) Aherloe in Emly diocese. 

 AVe will seek out their origin, if possible, as they come before us in the 

 survey. The divisions, as we shall see, correspond approximately to 

 the old tribe lands of Tuath Luimneach, Ui Cairbre, Ui Chonaill, 

 Ui Fidgeinte, Eeisibeg, Uaithne, Grian, and Atharlach. They should 

 probably correspond more closely but for the 1^'orse and Norman 

 settlements, and the tremendous expatriation of the Ui Eidgeinte, the 

 Ui Cairbre Aobhdha, and the Eoghanachts, by King Donaldmore 

 O'Brien, in 1178,^ when lie drove them beyond Mangerton and 

 Killarney, and cleared the ground for far more dangerous opponents — 

 tlie de Burgos and the Gcraldines. 



1 Proc. R.I. A., 1900, ser. 3., vol. vi., p. 100. 

 - Templebrcdon and other parishes even lie in two counties. 

 Annals of Inisf alien. Yet some writers express wonder that there is no record 

 of the Xormans driving out the Hy Fidgeinte. 



