Clareen, An Cláirín, Co. Offaly

An Cláirín · Co. Offaly

A crossroads in the Slieve Bloom foothills with no pub and no shop - but a fifth-century monastery, Seir Kieran, that was once the cathedral of Ossory.

Clareen is a small village in the parish of Seir Kieran, in south Offaly, 8 km east of Birr on the R421 with the Slieve Bloom rising behind it. The Irish name, An Cláirín, means the little plain, and that is the lie of the land here - open farming country at the foot of the mountains, low and quiet. The parish holds around 460 people. The village itself is a crossroads.

Be clear about what that means before you drive out. There is no pub here, and no shop. There is no cafe, no visitor centre, nowhere to buy a sandwich. What there is, a kilometre or so from the crossroads, is one of the oldest and least visited monastic sites in the country - Seir Kieran, Saighir in the old spelling - founded by St Ciaran before the year 489, and the cathedral seat of the Diocese of Ossory for six centuries. Most people drive the Slieve Bloom and never know it is there.

Come for the monastery and the mountains, not for comfort. Bring your own flask, walk the graveyard, read the stones, and then go on to Birr or Kinnitty for your dinner and your bed. Clareen is a half-hour stop on a bigger day out, and a good one if early Christian Ireland is the thing you came to Offaly for.

Population

~460 (Seir Kieran parish/ED)

Coords

53.0731° N, 7.7956° W

01 / 05

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The monastery

Seir Kieran (Saighir) - founded by St Ciaran before AD 489.

One of the oldest Christian sites in Ireland. From the 5th to the 11th century it was the cathedral seat of the Diocese of Ossory. A round-tower stump, a high-cross base, a Norman motte and a holy well survive in and around the graveyard. This is the reason to come.

Stories & lore → 02 The village

A crossroads parish of around 460 people, at the foot of the Slieve Bloom.

No pub, no shop. A Church of Ireland church on the monastic ground, a Roman Catholic church of 1901 on Bell Hill, a national school from 1874, and the Seir Kieran GAA grounds at the crossroads. The village exists for the people who live in it.

Walks & outings → 03 The hurling

Seir Kieran - a tiny parish that won the county four times.

The club, founded in 1887, took the Offaly Senior Hurling Championship in 1988, 1995, 1996 and 1998. The Dooley brothers, Eugene Coughlan and Kevin Kinahan all came off this ground and into Offaly's All-Ireland sides. Punching well above the weight of a place this size.

Stories & lore →

02 / 05

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

St Ciaran, before AD 489

Seir Kieran (Saighir)

St Ciaran of Saigir is reckoned among the Twelve Apostles of Ireland and, by tradition, the first saint born on the island - a pre-Patrician figure, though historians are rightly sceptical of the claim that he preceded Patrick. He founded his monastery at Saighir before the year 489 and became the first bishop of Ossory; he is still the patron saint of that diocese, whose seat later moved to Kilkenny. From the 5th to the 11th century Saighir was the cathedral city of Ossory. It declined after that, an Augustinian priory was planted on the site around 1200, and the Anglo-Normans threw up a timber castle on a low motte here in the twelfth century. What you walk through now is the long settling of all of that into one walled graveyard.

Round tower, high cross, holy well

What survives

In and around the graveyard: the base of a round tower outside the northwest corner of the priory, the decorated base of a large high cross with its shaft and head long gone, the priory ruin with a late-medieval gun turret on one corner, and the low Norman motte. The Church of Ireland church on the ground - built around 1780 and enlarged later, gable-fronted with a crow-stepped bellcote - has a fine thirteenth-century traceried window reused from the priory, with trefoil lancets and a quatrefoil. Close by are St Ciaran's holy well and a holy bush, a rag tree, where locals still tie cloths. On St Ciaran's feast, the 5th of March, people walk to the well, the bush and the graveyard. It is unsigned and underwhelming until you know what you are looking at, and then it is one of the quietly remarkable places in the midlands.

A small parish that won the county

Seir Kieran hurling

The GAA club was founded in 1887, the same drive that built the new parish church, and it has carried this small place a long way. Seir Kieran won the Offaly Senior Hurling Championship in 1988, 1995, 1996 and 1998. Five of its players took eleven All Stars between them - Eugene Coughlan, Kevin Kinahan, and the three Dooley brothers, Joe, Johnny and Billy. Club men captained Offaly's seniors in 1997, 2000 and 2014, and members were on each of Offaly's four All-Ireland winning sides. The grounds are at the crossroads, on six acres bought in 1961. For a parish of a few hundred, the record is hard to credit.

03 / 05

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

Seir Kieran monastic site The walled graveyard and church, the round-tower base, the high-cross base, the priory ruin and the motte. Wear boots - the ground is rough and can be wet. Take your time over the stones; there is no signage to hurry you and nobody to tell you what is what, which is part of the appeal. The holy well and the rag tree are a short walk on from the graveyard.

Short, on foot around the graveyarddistance

30-45 minutestime

Slieve Bloom from Clareen Clareen sits at the western foot of the Slieve Bloom. The marked trails proper are up around Cadamstown and Kinnitty to the east; from Clareen you drive into the glens and pick up the waymarked loops there. The mountains are a constant on the horizon from the village. Pack for weather that changes fast on the ridge.

Drive then walk - variesdistance

Half a daytime

04 / 05

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Expecting a pub, a shop or a bite to eat

There is none of it in Clareen - no pub, no shop, no cafe. This is a parish crossroads, not a tourist village. Eat and drink in Birr or Kinnitty before or after, and bring water if you are walking the monastic site.

A grand, signposted ruin

Seir Kieran is not Clonmacnoise. There is no car park, no centre, no interpretive panel doing the work for you. It is a working graveyard with the bones of a monastery in it. Read up before you come, or it will look like nothing. Read up first, and it is extraordinary.

Getting there.

By car

From Birr, 8 km east on the R421. From Kinnitty, a short run south-west along the foot of the Slieve Bloom. From Tullamore, roughly 35 km south on the R421 and local roads. The roads are narrow and wind through farmland.

By bus

No regular bus serves Clareen. Local Link runs limited rural services in the Birr area; check timetables. Birr is the nearest town with scheduled coach links.

By train

No railway. The nearest stations are at Portlaoise and Tullamore, both around 45 minutes by car, on the Dublin lines.

By air

Shannon (SNN) is about an hour south-west. Dublin (DUB) is roughly 1 hour 45 minutes north-east by car.