Ordnance Survey Letters by John O'Donovan and Eugene Curry, 1839

Parish of Clare Abbey (c)

There are extensive, tho’ very uninteresting ruins of the Abbey of Clare, and a burying ground still remaining with a lofty square tower rising from the middle of the principal Church, for all of which see Mr. Wakeman’s sketch.

There is an old Church and burying ground in the Townland of Killowe to which the old Church gives name, called in Irish Cill-Lugha, i.e., Lugha’s Church. It measures thirty seven feet nine inches in length and nineteen feet four inches in breadth, the walls in perfect preservation excepting a small breach over a window in the south side. There is a broken doorway at the distance of nine feet nine inches from the west gable in the south wall. There is a broken topped window twelve feet eight inches from this. The window in the east gable is four feet ten inches wide and about eleven feet high on the inside where, as well as I could ascertain through the thick ivy, it is pointed, five feet seven inches high and six and three quarter inches wide on the outside, where it is semicircular at top and channelled or castrated. There is a very respectable monument belonging to the Stamer family to the right of the window inside. This Church appears to be a modern one.

The Irish Calendar has a Saint Lugh venerated on the 16th of June, and Saint Lugha, son of Lugh, on the 1st July. In the list of Castles preserved in MS. T.C.D. Class E. 2., 14, the following Castles mentioned in it were situated in this Parish, viz:-

1. Clare Castle, belonging to the Earl of Thomond.
2. Island McGrath Castle, belonging to Mac Craigh.