Westropp — Ancient Chtirc/ies in Co. Limericlx. 343 



certain church names in the Taxation of 1302. It extended from 

 Abbeyfeale to Kilfinny, along the south of Connello, and was appa- 

 rently stopped by the castles of Shanid, Doondonnell, Askeaton, 

 Croom, and Adare,^ but not by IS'ewcastle. The destroyed churches 

 were — Corcomohide, Mahoonagh, Moyalthi, Cloncagh, Ballyhahill, 

 DromcoUiher, Cloncrew, Clonelty, ^Tewgrange, JSTewcastle, Eathcahill, 

 Killagholeghan, Killeedy, Killilagh, Feel, the Chapel of Montemale- 

 dictionis, and the churches of Clonshire, Kilmaclou, and Kilfinny. A 

 lesser raid along the western border destroyed the churches of Kil- 

 murrily, Loghill, and Kilfergus.^ It is remarkable that, while the 

 fierce wars of the de Clares and O'Eriens during forty years seem 

 to have rarely injured, and only twice destroyed, churches,^ the 

 annalists and historians pass over in complete silence that fierce war 

 which wasted, with fire and sword, a tract of country twenty-six miles 

 long and sixteen to eighteen miles wide ; that spared the churches as 

 little as the English manors, and " burned with fire the houses of 

 God in the land " to the number of two and twenty. 



XII. Collapse of the English Eowee. — It has become a common- 

 place that the collapse of the English power in western Ireland dated 

 from the Bruces' invasion, and the weak reign of Edward II. No 

 doubt these events helped to hasten its end ; but the germs of its mortal 

 illness are discoverable even in the strong reign of Edward I. At that 

 time the system of government was (in the district we are consider- 

 ing) of the greatest complication. We find chapters," or groups of 

 parishes, with elaborate local government, looking after the roads and 

 bridges, after outlaws and thieves. Then came coroners' districts, 

 and baronial divisions, and free towns, like Limerick and Kilmallock, 

 and courts- Christian, held anywhere as the church authorities saw 

 fit ; while bailiffs, governors, the escheator, the coroner, the king's 

 judges, and higher officers of the Crown intervened on every occasion. 

 iN"© one could be detected using a quern, or burying a body that 

 the coroner had not seen ; a wooden bridge could not show signs of 

 collapse ; the foxes at Kilcosgrave could not devoui' an unusual number 

 of rabbits in a warren ; a man could not be drowned by falling into a 

 river off a restless horse, or get killed by a mill-wheel ; a criminal 

 could not escape from a church — but the authorities were on the alert, 



1 Adare vill is, however, returned as " wasted by the war " in an Inquisition 

 of 1329. 



2 C. S.P.I. , 1302, p. 289. 



3 "Wars of Torlough," Annals of Innisf alien. 



R.I.A. PROC, VOL. XXV., SEC. c] [28] 



