Editing Clonmacnoise (section)

==History==
In 544<ref name=Healy/> Saint Ciarán, a young man from [[Rathcroghan]], [[County Roscommon]], arrived at this location with seven companions. (Saint Ciarán is not to be confused or conflated with St. [[Ciarán of Saigir]], patron of [[Kingdom of Ossory|Osraige]]). Here he met [[Diarmait mac Cerbaill]], who later became the first Christian crowned High King of Ireland. Together they built the first church at the site. This was a small wooden structure and the first of many small churches to be clustered on the site. In September 549, not yet thirty-three years of age, Ciarán died of a plague,<ref name="Healy" /> and was reportedly buried under the original wooden church, now the site of the 9th-century stone oratory, Temple Ciarán.<ref name="Monahan1886-52">{{cite book|last=Monahan|first=John|title=Records Relating to the Dioceses of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OVROAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA52|year=1886|publisher=M.H. Gill and Son|page=52|isbn=9780788437854 }}</ref> This location was particularly important because here the major east–west land route through the [[bog]]s of central Ireland along the [[Esker Riada|Eiscir Riada]] (an [[esker]] left by the receding glaciers of the last [[ice age]]) crossed the River Shannon.

[[File:Clonmacnoise castle and cattle.jpg|thumb|Clonmacnoise Castle]]

According to [[Adomnán]] of Iona, who referenced the testimony of earlier abbots of [[Iona]] who had known Columba, [[St Columba]] visited the monastery at Clonmacnoise during the time when he was founding the monastery at Durrow. While he was there he prophesied about the future debates in the churches of Ireland about the dating of Easter and claimed that angels had visited the monastery at Clonmacnoise. While he was there, a young monk named Ernéne mac Craséni (who would later be famous in Ireland) tried to touch Columba's clothes while Columba was not looking. However, the saint immediately noticed and grabbed the boy by the neck, told him to open his mouth, and then blessed him, saying that he would teach the doctrine of salvation.<ref>Adomnan of Iona. Life of St Columba. ed. Richard Sharpe. 1995, Penguin Books.</ref>

Towards the close of the seventh century a plague carried off a large number of its students and professors.<ref name=Healy/> Clonmacnoise's period of greatest growth came between the 8th and 12th centuries. It was attacked frequently during these four centuries, most often by the Irish (at least 27 times), the [[Viking]]s (at least 7 times) and the [[Normans]] (at least 6 times).<ref name="Ryan1976">{{cite book|last=Ryan|first=John|title=Clonmacnois: a historical summary|date=1 January 1976|publisher=Stationery Office &#91;for&#93; the National Parks and Monuments Branch, Office of Public Works|pages=47–51}}</ref> The early wooden buildings began to be replaced by more durable stone structures in the 9th century, and the original population of fewer than ten men grew to perhaps 1,500 to 2,000 by the 11th century. Although the site was based around a core of churches, crosses, graves and ecclesiastical dwellings and workshops, it would have been surrounded by the houses and streets of a larger secular community, the metalworkers, craftsmen and farmers who supported the monastic clergy and their students.<ref name=ulster>{{cite web|url=http://www.science.ulster.ac.uk/crg/nua/research/shannon/shannon.htm|title=Clonmacnoise Bridge – AD 804|last=Dr.R.J.Quinn|access-date=21 December 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222152812/http://www.science.ulster.ac.uk/crg/nua/research/shannon/shannon.htm|archive-date=22 December 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> Artisans associated with the site created some of the most beautiful and enduring artworks in metal and stone ever seen in Ireland, with the [[Clonmacnoise Crozier]] (on display in the [[National Museum of Ireland]]) and the Cross of the Scriptures representing the apex of their efforts. The [[Lebor na hUidre|''Book of the Dun Cow'']], a vellum manuscript dating to the 12th century, was written here<ref name=discover>{{cite web|url=http://www.discoverireland.ie/Arts-Culture-Heritage/clonmacnoise-monastic-site/16281|title=Clonmacnoise – Monastic site – Attractions – Churches, Abbeys and Monasteries – All Ireland – Republic of Ireland – Offaly – Clonmacnoise – All Ireland – Republic of Ireland – Offaly – Shannonbridge – Discover Ireland}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | author=Graves, James | title=Proceedings | journal=Journal of the [[Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland]] | year=1864–66 | volume=8 | pages=109–113, 174–9}}</ref> and its main compiler, [[Máel Muire mac Céilechair]] meic Cuinn na mBocht was reputedly murdered in a Viking raid in 1106.<ref>Annals of the Four Masters M1106</ref>

By the 12th century Clonmacnoise began to decline. The reasons were varied, although attacks by the Vikings (under [[Turgesius]]) and the Normans contributed. Without doubt the most debilitating factor was the growth of the town of [[Athlone]] to the north of the site from the late-12th century.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}} Athlone became the main trading town for the midlands of Ireland, and the most popular route for crossing the Shannon, as well as the best-defended settlement in the region. People migrated north from Clonmacnoise to Athlone, and along with the population decrease went much of the support that the site needed to survive, and former allies began to recognise the decline in the site's influence. The influx of continental religious orders such as the [[Cistercian]]s, [[Franciscan]]s, [[Augustinians|Augustinian]]s, [[Benedictine]]s, [[Cluniac]]s, etc. around the same time fed into this decline as numerous competing sites began to crop up. Ireland's move from a monastic framework to a diocesan one in the twelfth century similarly diminished the site's religious standing, as it was designated the seat of a small and impoverished diocese.<ref name="Flanagan2010">{{cite book|last=Flanagan|first=Marie Therese|title=The Transformation of the Irish Church in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dim880OnXeMC&pg=PA172|year=2010|publisher=Boydell & Brewer|isbn=978-1-84383-597-4|pages=172–174}}</ref>
[[File:Clonmacnoise at sunset.jpg|thumb|214x214px|Clonmacnoise at sunset]]
In 1552 the English garrison at [[Athlone]] destroyed and looted Clonmacnoise for the final time, leaving it in ruins.<ref name="RingWatson2013">{{cite book|last1=Ring|first1=Trudy|last2=Watson|first2=Noelle|last3=Schellinger|first3=Paul|title=Northern Europe: International Dictionary of Historic Places|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yfPYAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA180|date=28 October 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-63944-9|pages=180–182}}</ref>

The monastery ruins were one of the stops on the itinerary of [[Pope John Paul II]] during his [[Pope John Paul II's visit to Ireland|visit to Ireland in 1979]].<ref name="Harbison1995">{{cite book|last=Harbison|first=Peter|title=Pilgrimage in Ireland: The Monuments and the People|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TyDiLU70TREC&pg=PA117|date=1 April 1995|publisher=Syracuse University Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0-8156-0312-2|page=117}}</ref>