|Name:||Mona Incha||CISP No:||MONAI|
|Place:||inc (Tighmoney)||Grid Ref:||S 170 883 (IR)|
|County:||Tipperary (Tiobraid Árann) , Ireland||Saint(s):||Cronán ; Cainnech|
Petrie/1878, 35: `MONA-INCHA is situated in the townland of Tighmoney, parish of Corbally, and barony of Ikeran, in the county of Tipperary. The name signifies `the Bog of the Island,' from [Móin Mone], `a bog' and Incha, `Island'. A small but deep lake in this bog is all that now remains of Loch Cre, from which the island was formerly called Inis locha Cre'.
Petrie then relates some of the history of the site, primarily concerning the abbey:
`The remains at Mona-incha now consist of the ruins of a very beautiful church, with richly sculptured western doorway and chancel arch, probably built in the twelfth century, and a portion of the shaft of a cross covered with Celtic ornamental design. Three inscribed stones have been discovered in the church'.
Okasha/Forsyth/2001, 212--213: `Monaincha was once an island in a bog but is now a mound in marshy pasture land. Traditionally it was founded by St Cainnech of Aghaboe in the seventh century and served as a hermit retreat ... It is also associated in the hagiographic sources with St Crónan of Roscrea ... The earliest annalistic reference to the site is the death of Elarius `anchorite and scribe of Loch Cré' s.a. 806 ... The earliest building no on Monaincha is the ruined but highly ornate Romanesque church; built in the twelfth century, the church had alterations and additions made to it in the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries .. Petrie recorded the existence of `a portion of the shaft of a cross covered with Celtic ornamental design'. This may refer to the twelfth-century corss now re-erected to the west of the church ... Crawford also recorded an uninscribed cross-slab then lying north-east of the chancel'.