Kilteasheen
Very little is know about the ecclesiastical site at Kilteasheen from historical records. The site seems to have been used as a staging ground for the O’Conor kings of Connacht, as the annals mention that the site was used to hold cavalry and hostages. The ecclesiastical site is first mentioned in the Annals of Connacht in 1253, when the annalists mention that a cuirt was built near the church by the Bishop of Elphin, Tomas O Conor. The next mention in the annals is six years later, when the cousin of Tomas, Aed O Conor, destroyed the cuirt at Kilteasheen so that it would not be captured by Anglo-Normans who were making inroads into north Roscommon at this time. The fourteenth century medieval ecclesiastical taxation and valuations mention the church as one of the churches in existence at the time of the taxation in the early fourteenth century. The church was valued at a modest ten shillings, which was roughly average for the diocese. This is the last clear reference to the site as an ecclesiastical site, but later documents suggest that the area was still settled well into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
The First Edition Ordnance Survey map includes both the church and the platform feature to the south of the church. The church on this map is titled “Bishop’s Seat,” probably a name given to the church because of its association with Tomas O Conor and because of a seat-like area in one of the remaining walls of the ruins of the church. The platform to the south of the church is mistakenly described as a ringfort, but the reference is also curious because of the inclusion of some sort of internal division within the feature. This could refer to several wall lines that are immediately below the surface.
