Inghean Baoith’s Convent of Women, aka Kilnaboy Church

Known now as Kilnaboy Parish in County Clare, lands around this area, including the ruins of Kilnaboy Church, were originally known as a female centric ritual center headed by Abbess Inghean Baoith.

the Ruins of Kilnaboy Church, sited on Inghean Bath’s sacred site

This area, located within the geological wonder that is the Burren, is recognized as sacred by the High Druids of Ireland.

The Burren near what is now Kilnaboy Parish

It was one of the key “peripheral zones” of the island; that is, lands safe from ongoing battles between clans, devoted instead to learning, healing, the development of culture and a dedication to spiritual pursuits. It was an honor for a king of Ireland to have such a center located wit in his Chiefdom because they were few and far between.

History provides us with very little factual information about Inghean Baoith. However, through deep digging on one very rainy day, I managed to unearth the following:

She was the daughter of a wealthy man named Baoith, a member of the highest family, the E’oghanacht, who served in unknown capacity for the Chieftan, Cathair Conmain, on whose land Inghean was granted permission to site her center. She did so in 540 A.D.

It is said that she used to sit for hours in a natural depression in the stones above her Convent looking out upon the countryside. There is, in fact, a holy well near that location named in her honor, then dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
photo Art with Heart

Interestingly, there are a total of 18 wells dedicated to her throughout County Clare, which gives us an idea of just how important she once was. The well above the Kilnaboy ruins near where she sat meditating is considered to be the most holy.

Historian Padraig O’Rianin describes Inghean Baoith as having 45 or 56 “spiritual children”. These were most likely female acolytes who studied and lived with her in this safe place. They practiced Goddess based spirituality,
wiped out by the 12th century Church reforms driving the creation of the patriarchal religious system that remains in power today.

The church, as part of its ongoing destruction of female “Pagan centers”, conscripted the name of Inghean Baoith, turning her into Saint Inghine. It then built a church on top of the lands where her Goddess practice had flourished. Lands which, by the way, are less than 6 miles away from the Poulnabrone dolman, a critical Neolithic portal tomb dating back to between 4200 and 2900 B.C. where Goddess worship reigned.
One of several dolmans and burial mounds in the area

Another interesting fact, Kilnaboy, the name of both church and parish, is a variant form of Baoith. Even as the church tried to kill her memory they retained her name.

Sources say she was the aunt of Brigid of Kildare, Abbess of her own Goddess based convent,
also appropriated by the Church.

She was then reinvented as Saint Brigit. You may remember reading about her an earlier blog post of mine.

A poem written in Irish in the 11th century about Inghean Baoith documents that she once challenged Saint Senan. She reminded him that before “the end” there would be women on his island. His island is Scattery Island, the site of a male only Bishopric visited by both Saints Brendan and Ciaran. The legend of “St. Senanus and the Lady”, as told in Tom Moore’s lyric, is founded also on this fact. It is a bold and unusual challenge to have been made by a woman during these times.

I discovered that as late as the 1960’s, infertile women continued to make “rounds” of the existing church ruins from dusk until sunrise, seeking assistance from Inghean Baoith and the Sheela na Gig above the doorframe in conceiving. This, in defiance of the strict controls the Catholic Church places upon women. Local women also continued to name their children after Inghean Baoith for generations, modernizing the name to Innewee.

As we so often find with churches established during the 12th century Church Reform, a Sheela na Gig is, indeed, prominent on the entry doorway of Kilnaboy Church.

close up of the Sheela
This covert symbol, carved by Stonemasons and placed throughout Christianized holy sites, was done so to protect against supernatural evil presences.

Sheela na Gigs are believed to be representational symbols of the cow goddess, Boand, also Goddess of the River Boyne, flowing through the most fertile heart of Ireland. It is interesting to note that St. Inghine Baoith, founding Abbess of the site chosen for the Kilnaboy Church, took her name from this same fertility goddess, Boand/Baoith.

Saint Inghine’s feast day is still celebrated on May 6th.

Apparently, the lands of Inghean Baoith’s early female convent were a major stopping place on the international pilgrimage route. This belief is validated by the fact that the Catholic Church decorated Kilnaboy Church with one of only two double barred patriarchal crosses, known as the Cross of Lorraine, found in Ireland.
The double barred Cross of Lorraine on Kilnaboy Church ruin

These double barred crosses are reminiscent of the cross found in the Holy Sepulcher Church in Jerusalem, the place of the reported resurrection of Jesus Christ. Churches throughout Europe and the Middle East displaying these rare double barred crosses are believed to have received valuable holy relics, fragments of the “true cross”, which were hidden beneath one of the bars.

Thus, this church built around 1200-1250 A.D. would have been a major reliquary pilgrimage site. Which would explain why, as the church fell into dis-repair, it was extensively rebuilt in the 17th century.
lovely windows built in 1743ish
the original Altar

Kilnaboy Church is curious in that it has a strange, unknown mythical beast carved into one wall.

No one knows what it is or why it is there, though many speculate that it is another display tribute, similar to that of the Sheela na Gig.

There is an unusual crucifixion tableau on one wall dated to 1644.

There are also the remains of a round tower, once splendid, now just a nub,

which served successfully as a defense post for centuries until Cromwell’s forces finally brought it to ruin.

Given the historical prominence of this site I find it interesting that it is not on the tourist trail. However, I am glad that it has been mercifully spared the bus loads who swarm many of the much lesser sites. Could it be because of its origins as a Pagan Goddess center and ongoing efforts by the dominant patriarchy to make it disappear?

I do know I was grateful for the peace and solitude I was able to experience as I visited this important pilgrimage destination and pay homage to the almost forgotten Abbess who once served there, Inghean Baoith.

Blessed Be.