Clonkeen (Clonkyne) Church, Co. Laois (Queen's Co.)

Clonkeen (aka Clonkyne) Co. Laois (Queen’s Co.) Ireland. From Lewis Topographical Dictionary (1837) : ABBEYLEIX, a market and post-town, and a parish, partly in the barony of FASSADINING, county of KILKENNY, and partly in the barony of MARYBOROUGH-WEST, but chiefly in that of CULLINAGH, QUEEN’S county, and province of LEINSTER, 7 miles (S. S. E.) from Maryborough, and 47 ½ miles (S. W.) from Dublin; containing 5990 inhabitants, of which number 1009 are in the town. This place, called also Clonkyne Leix, or De Lege Dei, was the site of a monastery founded about the year 600, but of which there is no further account till the year 1183, when it was refounded and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin by Conogher or Corcheger O’More, who placed in it, monks of the Cistertian order from Baltin-glass, in the county of Wicklow, and was himself interred within its precincts. These photographs were taken April 2008.