Qualla: Church Island (Lough Currane)

Church Island (Lough Currane): Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jibi44, CC BY 2.5. On a sandstone slab on a small island in a lake in southwest Ireland, someone in the twelfth century carved a musician playing a bowed lyre. Nobody knows his name. Nobody knows the tune. What they do know is that the slab sits inside a roofless Romanesque church, on an island that locals once called Inis na bFer Naemh - Island of Holy Men - and that the saint buried somewhere beneath the cairns was reportedly important enough to give his name to Skellig Michael as well.

Image: Jibi44 | CC BY 2.5

Church Island (Lough Currane): The Noble Island

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peigios, CC BY-SA 4.0. Lough Currane stretches just inland from the Atlantic, a long, deep lake fringed with reeds and grazing land. About two and a half kilometres east of Waterville, near the lake's eastern end, a small island rises just above the surface - all of 1.8 hectares, a green hump barely ta...

Image: Peigios | CC BY-SA 4.0

Church Island (Lough Currane): Stone, Saint, and Slab

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hawkwind, Public domain. Around the third quarter of the twelfth century, the wooden church was replaced by the small Romanesque stone church whose ruins still stand. Three arched windows survive, miraculously intact, facing toward the lake. Eleven cross-inscribed grave-slabs lie within the surrounding c...

Image: Hawkwind | Public domain

Church Island (Lough Currane): The Musician on Sandstone

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JohnArmagh, CC BY-SA 3.0. Inside the ruined church, set into the wall, is a rectangular block of sandstone bearing a twelfth-century relief: a small figure playing a bowed lyre, the bow held with the seriousness of someone who has practised. Bowed string instruments are rare in early medieval Irish iconog...

Image: JohnArmagh | CC BY-SA 3.0

Church Island (Lough Currane): Still There, Still Watched

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JohnArmagh, CC BY-SA 3.0. Today Church Island is a National Monument in state care. It is not open in any formal sense: there is no jetty, no signage, no ticket. Local fishermen and the occasional curious visitor ferry across when the weather and water allow. From the surrounding road and from the village...

Image: JohnArmagh | CC BY-SA 3.0