nendrum Round tower

Grid reference: J524636 Geology (round tower): greywacke sandstone, red sandstone date: 10th/11th century

It is a long and windy road over island and causeway that leads to the venerable ancient monastery of nendrum, itself on an island named Mahee, but it is worth the detour if for no other reason than to enjoy the peace and the quiet – and the birdsong – beside the shores of strangford lough. but, more importantly, the journey will be rewarded with the sight of some of the most significant remains of an old Irish monastic enclosure anywhere on the island of Ireland, consisting of remains of a church, a Round tower and three roughly concentric stone and earthen walls on a raised hillock overlooking the waters of the lough.

Reconstruction of the first tidal mill of c. 619 AD (painting by Philip Armstrong, courtesy of the Northern Ireland Environment Agency).

The founder of the monastery is normally given as st Mochaoi who is said to have died in the 490s and to whom – according to a much later tradition – st Patrick is said to have given a crozier and gospel book. but neither historical sources nor excavations carried out by H. C. lawlor in the 1920s have shown any evidence of human activity until the seventh

century at earliest, when the old Irish annals begin to record the deaths of bishops, abbots and a scribe between the years 639 and 976. Monastic occupation would have continued after that until the time when ulster’s norman conqueror, John de Courcy, established a small benedictine house on the site after 1177. Its life would have been much shorter than its older counterpart and, by the fifteenth century, the monastery had declined to such an extent that it became little more than a parish church.

The first person whose death is recorded in connection with nendrum, a bishop named Crídán who died in 639, may have experienced what is now recognised as one of the most remarkable technological innovations known from early Christian Ireland. This was a tidal mill which can be seen on looking out towards strangford lough. A barrier running across the little inlet beside the car park acted as a dam to retain water brought in by the tide, which could be opened at low-tide to drive a horizontal mill. It was built with wood felled some time in the years between 619 and 621, making it the earliest known tidal mill anywhere in europe. It shows the nendrum monks to have been among the most innovative engineers during Ireland’s early Middle Ages, whose genius in harnessing tidal waters enabled them to grind corn efficiently not only for themselves but probably also for the wider lay community as well. The mill may have ground slowly, but it ground exceeding well for more than a century and a half until it needed to be replaced by a more up-to-date model, built around 789, the remains of which can be seen on the right-hand side of the inlet as seen from the car park. walking up the hill from the car park, the visitor encounters remains of three roughly concentric walls mentioned above, which decrease in diameter and size towards the centre which contained the church and Round tower, and quarters for the abbot, the overall head of the monastery, and probably also for a bishop whose functions were mainly religious and sacramental. This core part of the monastery was less than an acre in extent, whereas the outermost enclosure encompassed around six acres. lawlor’s excavations were carried out at a time before precise modern techniques had been developed, and he may be forgiven for having missed out on discovering traces of wooden buildings which may have lain beneath the surface. but, what can be said to his credit is that his was the most extensive excavation of an ancient monastery ever undertaken in Ireland.

His diggings were followed by extensive and well-meaning restoration of the stone walls and remains, but his lack of recording of these activities carried out under his supervision means that it is nowadays often difficult to distinguish between what is old and what is new, and to realise the original extent of the various parts of the old monastery.

The outer ring, where still extant and consisting of a combination of earth and stone, would have enclosed an area suitable for agriculture and market gardening, probably sprinkled with fruit trees of one sort or another. The area inside the middle ring would probably have been reserved for the monks’ living and working quarters, including workshops and what lawlor described as a ‘school’ in which he discovered a writing stylus, indicating the possibility of the monastery having housed an ancient scriptorium, though no old manuscripts are known which could be readily identified as products of nendrum. lawlor’s restoration included the present church building, the doorway being the result of modern reconstruction. but enough survived of the stone church (which was probably the successor of one or more wooden structures) to show that it had what are known as ‘antae’, extensions of the north and south walls beyond the end-gables, which suggest that it was built probably around a thousand years ago – but the eastern extension may be the work of the benedictines settled here by John de Courcy in the twelfth century. when bishop Reeves came to nendrum in 1842 to search for a church there as mentioned in a taxation document of 1302, he was shown what locals told him was an old lime-kiln, but he was the first to recognise in modern times that it was none other than the ancient monastery’s Round tower. Its present shape owes something to lawlor’s restoration, but its outlines give us a fair idea of what its lower part once looked like. unlike Down’s other existing Round towers, rather larger stones were used in constructing the lowermost courses, with smaller ones used as it rose. The internal measurements of 6 feet 9 inches suggest that it may have been smaller than the average tower, and almost certainly less than the Round tower at Downpatrick which we know only from eighteenth-century drawings. At present the nendrum tower rises to a height of only 14 feet, without any sign of the ancient doorway having been preserved. lawlor’s excavations uncovered a greater number of finds than any

other monastic site in Ireland, most of which are now preserved by the national Museums northern Ireland. ssome of the findswhich are on display in the ulster Museum in belfast, and others are on loan to Down County Museum and can be seen in the ‘Down Through time’ exhibition in the central Governor’s Residence building. The educational site museum at nendrum houses a number of stone cross-slabs from the site, and also the Mourne granite millstone from the tidal mill. one of the most remarkable discoveries from lawlor’s excavations was an ancient iron bell dipped in bronze which could have been stored in, or conceivably even been rung, from the Round tower. besides everyday household implements, ‘trial-pieces’ were unearthed which bore artistic designs of one sort or another scratched into the surface to provide patterns that could have been used by craftsmen producing bronze objects with the aid of some of the crucibles and moulds found in the excavations. one of the most intriguing of lawlor’s discoveries was the fragment of a possible grave-slab bearing an inscription in Insular display capitals of the 8th century, which links nendrum with other major Insular centres, such as lindisfarne and Kells, where famous Gospel books were written.

The sundial at Nendrum monastic site. The inscribed slab from Nendrum (courtesy of National Museums Northern Ireland).

[Insert map 10 here, showing route from nendrum to Downpatrick].

After your visit to Nendrum, you can complete your circular route around the High Crosses and Round Towers of County Down by driving south to Downpatrick, where Down Cathedral returns into view on the horizon, and welcomes you backa sculpture of St Patrick welcomes visitors to to the ancient Hill of Down‘City Of Downe’. For well-earned refreshments, you will find Denvir’s, Downpatrick’s oldest inn (founded in 1642), at the bottom of English Street, or Justines Restaurant, further up the street next to the Courthouse, formerly a gaol and the base of the Down Hunt, the oldest Hunt Club in Ireland.

Painting of Down Cathedral and Round Tower, unknown artist, c. 1850-70 (DCM 2000-162).