The first time I visited Castledermot (in Kildare) I just took a quick look at the prominent but rather lifeless ruin of the 1247 Franciscan Friary on the main street and missed the treasures at the earlier monastic site down a side lane.
There you will find a 12th century Romanesque doorway, an earlier round tower incorporated into a church, three remarkable high crosses, a puzzling holed stone and a Viking-style hogback grave. Each is a curiosity in itself but two of them, put together along with the name of the town, point to an interesting story.
The town’s name in Irish is Díseart Diarmada, meaning 'Dermot's Desert/Hermitage'. Diseart (in Irish) or ‘Desert’ means an out-of-the way hermitage to which monks retired for a period of hermit-like solitude.
The practice got a boost in the late 8th century with the spread of the Celi De (Followers of God) revival movement led by Maelruan of Tallaght. It was an effort to counter what was seen as a loss of counter-culture edge in an Irish church which was growing in wealth and social esteem. A disciple of Maelruan, an Ulsterman named Dermot, started one such community in what became ‘Dermot’s Diseart’ around 800.
The two pictorial stone crosses on the site are another clue. On the head of one are the two iconic Desert Fathers (Paul of Thebes and Antony the Hermit) whose spiritual approach inspired the early Irish Church and whose heritage the Celi De followers wanted to revive. Images of those two men appear on most of the Irish High Crosses across Ireland raised at that time.
Also emerging at that period were the tall Round Towers whose purpose is much disputed by scholars but the image of a lighthouse, which they resemble, was used by John Cassian (the 4th century chronicler of the Desert Fathers) to describe the role of a monastery which should be seen from afar as a promise of safety and direction.
Both the crosses and tower at Castledermot are attributed to Abbot Cairbre who died in 919 when Celi De influence was at its height.
The detail of the High Crosses stirred my curiosity and got me thinking of a whole range of new places to visit. I hope to come back to them again.
While at Castledermot I remembered that Cormac, the saintly bishop whose chapel has survived on Cashel, studied at Castledermot as a Celi De and is buried there (though I did not see his grave). His predecessor Fedelmid, that notorious King of Munster who had no hesitation in attacking monasteries, was also a noted Celi De follower though, hopefully, not typical.
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