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The church at '''Killeshin''' is largely twelfth century in date, although some parts show evidence of later rebuilding, including a late Gothic east window. Probably the portal and north window belong to c.1150, and post-date Diarmait Mac Murchada's blinding and killing of 17 Leinster nobles, including three of the local Uí Barraiche dynasty, in whose locality the church stood. Scholars consider the church to be typical of the Hiberno-Romanesque style, as it combines a simple plan (nave and chancel), with antae (a feature of pre-Romanesque stone buildings in Ireland), with an elaborately carved west portal.

==History==
The monastery of Glenn Uisin was founded by Diarmait mac Siabairr, a saint of the local Uí Barraiche family, and the [[Annals of Tigernach]] record its plundering, and the destruction of an earlier wooden church in 1041, in revenge for its patrons’ involvement in the burning of [[Ferns, Ireland|Ferns]].  However, it seems that by the time of the Romanesque portal, ties with the Uí Barraiche had been severed almost completely, as the inscription reads: ORAIT DO DIARMAIT RI LAGEN - 'a prayer for Diarmait, king of Leinster', almost certainly [[Diarmait Mac Murchada]].

==The Portal==
The portal itself is of four orders, with what is known as a 'tangent gable' above; so called because the lines of the gable are at a tangent to the arch of the doorway itself. These gables are usually thought to derive from the north porch at Cormac's Chapel, Cashel, (1127-34), widely acknowledged as one of the first, most ambitious and most influential Romanesque buildings in Ireland. Tangent gables are found elsewhere at Roscrea and Donaghmore in Co. Tipperary, Clonfert, Co. Galway, and at Freshford in Co. Kilkenny. It is very possible that the gable here contained a figure, similar to that at Roscrea, and parallels for this are also found in England, at Lullington in Somerset. Certainly the Killeshin portal has been disassembled and reassembled at some stage in its history, and several stones are missing - the portal is not as intact as it at first appears.
The decoration itself on the portal is extremely fine, and it should particularly be noted that among the chevrons of the voussoirs, and filling up the spandrels, are a variety of small beasts and birds, which seem to show manuscript and metalwork influence. Indeed, the low relief work on the doorway would originally have been painted, as the use of different coloured stones (granite and sandstone) used randomly, clearly indicates. 

==The Inscription==
Killeshin is one of the few Romanesque churches in Ireland to have a remaining inscription, along with Freshford (already mentioned), Monaincha, Co. Tipperary, and a recently discovered fragment built into Temple-na-Hoe at Ardfert, Co. Kerry. The inscription at Killeshin makes clear the secular patronage of the church at this time, and thereby links it with other foundations by Diarmait Mac Murchada, including nearby Baltinglass Abbey, Co. Wicklow, and St Saviour's Priory at [[Glendalough]].

==External links==
*[[RSAI]] [http://www.rsai.ie/index.cfm?action=obj.display&obj_id=107 page on Killeshin]

[[Category:Buildings and structures in Laois]]