Go Walk: Dysert O'Dea, Co Clare

The landscape of Co Clare has a dense scattering of ruins and monuments from every historic period, and the area around Dysert O’Dea Castle near Corofin is no exception. The community there has established a Heritage Walking Route, through the history of Ireland which connects many of the antiquities in the area, including Bronze Age cooking places, Iron Age stone forts, a Romanesque church, a round tower and a richly decorative high cross. This easy circular walk, great for children, takes in most of them, and it starts at Dysert Castle, the 15th century seat of the O’Dea clan, which has a museum and tea room.

Walk out the avenue from the castle, turn right and cross a field to St Tola’s Church. On the way, the 13th century Dysert High Cross is passed. It is decorated with the figure of St Tola, a local saint, and the Christ child. During ceremonial gatherings, the head of the infant could be removed and passed around with reverence. Many years ago, boys were seen bowling with the child’s head, so it is now fixed in place.

A stile is climbed into the churchyard where the ruined church stands on the site of a monastery founded by St Tola in the eighth century. Here stands the stump of a round tower whose top was blown off in 1651 by Cromwellian canon.

The Romanesque door of the church depicts a semi-circular array of the heads of 19 people and animals amid rich interlaced decoration. Inside, on the church wall, a stone plaque marks the grave of Joan O’Dea Butler, wife of Michael O’Dea, the last O’Dea chieftain to live in Dysert Castle.

The route goes out the gate onto the road and past Synge’s Lodge, a rustic early 19th century house built as a guesthouse for visitors of the Synge family. The lime trees they planted thrive, but the house is in ruin.

We now turn left into a pleasant lanewaywhich soon becomes a grassy bohereen. But for the strident call of a wren and the buzzing of bees on roadside flowers, it is quiet, but this way once rang with the sound of great armies: the forces of Hugh O’Donnell marched here on their way to the Battle of Kinsale in 1599, and a large Cromwellian army came this way in 1651.

As the bohereen begins to ascend, views to the north open up, with Clifden, the wooded hill that overlooks Lough Inchiquin, breaking the horizon in the near distance. A brief detour to the left through a farmyard will bring you to the remains of Cathair Mhic Éogain, McKeown’s Fort, a massive stone structure. It was inhabited until the end of the 16th century. From the walls there is a view of Mullaghmore and the southern hills of the Burren.

The main routes continues downhill and left to the Dysert church, built in 1865. Beside it is a killeen, a burial place for infants who died before being baptised. Traditionally they were believed to be denied heaven, and spent eternity in Limbo. Ireland oncehad many of these, but most have disappeared into farmland. In a nearby field, opposite the church, is one of the many holy wells in the area, Tobar Oireacht. A clear spring still rises in one of a small cluster of strange cylindrical structures. The water is said to be a great cure for eye complaints.

Eyes ready to see the world anew, the route returns to Dysert Castle, passing an old lime kiln, and Molaneen House, a farmer’s house of about 1780, after an afternoon’s journey through nearly 1,500 years of history.