loading map - please wait...
The Abbey Community Centre The site of one of Ireland’s oldest monasteries, said to be founded by St. Ailbe around 520. It hosted the famous Synod of Clane in 1162 and was the Church of Ireland’s home until a new church was built in Millicent in 1883. It’s basically medieval structure was restored in the 1970s by Clane Community Council. Its Garden of Remembrance records those buried there as well as a surprising number of renowned Clane people. | |
Fr. John Sullivan Memorial This memorial was erected in memory of Fr. John Sullivan, a saintly Clongowes Jesuit whose beatification is currently being considered. A nearby information panel on Historic Clane highlights a walk which takes in some of the sights detailed here. | |
Friary and Abbey Cemetery Founded by Gerald Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald in 1258, this Friary was one of Ireland’s earliest Franciscan monasteries. It was suppressed by Henry VIII in 1536, but Franciscans still return each year to celebrate Mass. An information board at the site provides more detailed information. | |
Abbeylands House Abbeylands House. Now sadly uninhabited, this listed building was constructed in 1828 for the local Church of Ireland minister. Sold to Mr. Penryn in the early 1900s it was purchased by the O’Neill family in 1934 for £200 and they lived here until the lands were sold for housing in the late 1990s. | |
McCracken's Woollen Mills The River Liffey in Clane is substantial enough to power machinery and in times past a working mill existed on both sides of the river at Alexandra Bridge. Today the derelict building to the north of the bridge is all that remains of the dyehouse for McCracken's Woollen Mills. The channel for the mill race remains under the road, and can be seen from the Liffeyside Nature Park opposite. | |
Norman Motte Now in the grounds of Cois Abhainn, this impressive Norman earthworks is termed a “motte” and is reputed to be built on an earlier mound said to be King Mesgegra’s burial place. Sunday’s Well, a hot spring now covered over, is at its base. | |
Bullaun Stone On the bank of the stream, 50m upstream from the Friary, is the oldest man-made object in Clane. This enigmatic hollowed-out stone was probably used in druidic ritual, and marks where Mesgegra is said to have been slain. | |
Millennium Cross Unveiled by President Mary McAleese in 1999 this cross is a replica of that which marks the burial place of St. Ailbe in Emly, Co. Tipperary. It sits on the base of a medieval wayside cross, known locally as the “wart stone”, which once marked a boundary of the monastery or Friary. | |
Dr. Flanagan's House This late 18th Century house built as an inn by Mathew Donnellan, a friend of Wolfe Tone who suffered imprisonment for his role in the 1798 rebellion. It marked the start of what was to be straight road via Prosperous to Limerick, commenced in 1770 but never completed. | |
Old Garda Barracks The building now housing a barbers and a jewellery shop was used as a Garda station from 1923 to the 1970s. It was previously the home of the paternal family of Blessed Columba Marmion, beatified in 2000 by Pope John Paul II. | |
1798 Memorial The very first battles of the 1798 Rebellion occurred here in Clane and in Prosperous, where many died. Dr. John Esmonde, who was later hanged from Carlisle Bridge in Dublin, led these local forces. Kildare rebels were led by Painstown man Wm. Aylmer and the two national leaders of the rebellion also lived locally, Wolfe Tone and Hamilton Rowan. | |
Church of St. Patrick and Brigid The Presentation sisters established a convent in 1839 at this orphanage site and gave land for this fine church, designed by William Hague and built by Fr. Turner in 1884, on the site of an earlier church, for £7000. At the front is the one-roomed Old Girls School (1818), one of the oldest Catholic primary schools in Ireland. | |
The Old Court House The Parish Office was once the local Court House, housing the Sinn Fein courts during the War of Independence. It later formed part of the local school. | |
RIC Barracks Marron’s Pharmacy was the location of the Royal Irish Constabulary barracks until 1920. In the 1930s it was purchased by Sergeant Marron of An Garda Síochána as a family home. |