In 1305, the Prior of this abbey sued Odo, the Prior of Athlone, for the advowson of the vicarage of the church of Randowne.—Rol. P. B. T. No. 52.
The other abbey is said to have been founded under the invocation of the Holy Trinity for Præmonstre Canons, by Clarus Mac Moylin O’Maolchonry, Archdeacon of Elphin, about the year 1215.
Of all these structures, as well military as religious and domestic, there only remain at present deserted and time-worn ruins, but these ruins are of great interest, and speak most eloquently of the past. The most important feature amongst them is the castle, which occupies a rocky eminence, rising abruptly from the water on the shore of the small inlet called Safe Harbour, in which it may be presumed that the armed vessels employed upon Lough Ree found security under the walls of the fortress. This castle is well described by Mr Weld, in his excellent Survey of Roscommon, as being built nearly in the form of the letter P, the tail of the letter being short in proportion, and occupied by a spacious apartment for banqueting or assembly. In the head of the letter, next the upright stem, is placed the keep, a lofty, massive, and before the use of artillery, impregnable structure: it has a court before it to the east, which was defended along the curve by a strong wall, with banquette and parapet, and ditches of great depth, on the outer side. The line represented by the stem of the letter, stretching in a direction across the point, is in length above two hundred and forty feet, and is protected at its base by that great artificial fosse which insulated this lower portion of the peninsula and the castle as already stated, but which is now nearly dry, the level having been altered by the rubbish which has fallen into it from the ruins. Nearly in the centre of this line appear the remains of abutments, both on the castle and outer side of the fosse, marking the site of the draw-bridge, and opposite to a small gateway in the castle wall. “The keep,” Mr Weld observes, “as beheld both on the land side and from the lake, presents a very imposing mass, its outer walls being entire, and its great tower rising to a very considerable elevation: but the edifice on the land side appears almost shapeless, owing to the extraordinary luxuriance of the ivy with which it is overrun, originating from two vast flatted stems which spring up over the base of the walls, just over the long fosse. I had the curiosity to measure them, and found the one to be four feet six inches, and the other seven feet five inches broad, presenting, though with many sinuosities, an undivided face of bark, from side to side, and still growing with great vigour. I cannot call to recollection having seen a more vast and uninterrupted mass of ivy foliage.
The great tower is about fifty feet broad next the fosse: in the upper story, traces of windows appear through the ivy, and of small watch-towers at the angles. Like the other great castles of the country, it was evidently destroyed by violence; and nothing short of the powerful effects of gunpowder could have cast down the prodigious fragments of masonry which stand insulated in the inner court. The view of the castle is extremely pleasing from the water, and more particularly so, when the sheltered harbour beneath its walls receives a little fleet of the beautiful sailing pleasure-boats which are used upon this lake, the gaiety of whose ensigns and painted sides forms a remarkable contrast to the sombre tints of the ancient ivied walls, and the grey rocks on which they repose.”
A short distance to the east of the castle, the remains of a round watch-tower, as it would appear to be, crown the summit of a promontory which is the highest point of the peninsula. Its diameter within is about fourteen feet, and the walls are four feet thick. The entrance and the window opposite to it face the water, and command most pleasing views up and down the lake. The window, surmounted by a flat rounded arch, about seven feet in height, is more spacious than such as are usually seen in a building of this kind, and affords ample light to the chamber. Tho ground between this promontory and the eminence occupied by the castle is low and marshy, and water probably once flowed over it.
In addition to the fosse already described, the castle, and indeed the whole peninsula, was further protected by a great wall which crossed from one side to the other. According to Mr Weld’s measurements, this wall is 564 yards in length from water to water, its distance from the castle-fosse being 700 yards. “Nearly in the middle of it is an arched gateway, with its defences still tolerably entire, twenty-four feet deep, and presenting a front of twenty-one feet: between this gate and the water at either side there are square towers, at unequal intervals of from sixty to ninety yards, advanced about thirteen feet beyond the line of the walls, and being in breadth about fifteen feet: in the interior the dimensions are about eight feet six inches. These towers doubtless afforded stations for the archers, and also facilitated the access to the parapet and banquette of the wall. Whether there ever had been a fosse on the outer side, I am unable to say; the probability is, that there was; but if so, the ground has been levelled, and the rank luxuriance of vegetation has obliterated its lines. The building of the wall, however, appears in many parts to have been hastily executed, and cement to have been sparingly used, yet it still remains a most interesting monument of the military works of past ages.”
Of the ecclesiastical edifices of Rinn-duin, but small remains exist, and as their names are lost to tradition, it is difficult now to identify them with certainty. The principal ruin, which is situated near the draw-bridge over the great fosse, on the land side, is most probably the church erected in the commencement of the thirteenth century, and dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Neither windows nor doorways exist to give any idea of its style, but its walls are in sufficient preservation to show the form and dimensions of the building. Like most important Irish churches it consists of a nave and choir; the nave is sixty feet long and twenty-four feet wide, the choir thirty-three feet long and eighteen wide. This church, it may be presumed, stood in a conspicuous part of the town; but not a vestige now remains of any other edifice, either ecclesiastical or domestic, between the castle and the fortified wall across the isthmus. The rude remains of the other ecclesiastical buildings are situated on the outer side of the fortified wall, and are connected with a burial-ground still much used; but there is nothing in these remains worthy of particular notice.
A desire to supply, as far as in our power, a chasm in our local histories, has induced us to extend our notice of the remains of Rinn-duin to a greater length than that usually allotted to our topographical papers, the history of these remains having been hitherto involved in great darkness. Dr Ledwich, in his account of the castle, written for Grose’s Antiquities of Ireland, briefly states that there are no memorials of its structure! And even Mr Weld, the latest writer who has described this locality, remarks, that “as to its past history, it is involved in a mysterious and perhaps now impenetrable obscurity.” By the publication, for the first time, of much matter hitherto locked-up in manuscript records, we have, as we trust, thrown no small additional light on the history of these interesting remains; and we have only to add, that for the documents which we have used, we are in part indebted to the kindness of Sir W. Betham, and still more to that of our friend Mr O’Donovan, who has allowed us the use of his translation of the unpublished Annals of the Four Masters.
P.