The Diamond, Clones

Area

310 m²

Buildings

1 building touches it, 9 m² on the ground

Zoning

M2 Town Centre (Monaghan County Development Plan 2025-2031) The objective

Townland

Crossmoyle

Planning applications on this parcel

• 29 May 2026N/a

  planning permission for the change of use of the former bank building into emergency refuge accommodation units and associated office, reception, counselling, meeting and communal spaces for victim/survivors of Domestic Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (DSGBV). Proposed works include; i) Reconfiguration of internal layouts within former Ulster Bank. ii) Any associated site works

  Permission · Monaghan County Council, 2660222

• 6 May 2026N/a

  permission for the change of use of the former bank building into emergency refuge accommodation units and associated office, reception, counselling, meeting and communal spaces for victim/survivors of Domestic Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (DSGBV)

  Permission · Monaghan County Council, 2660182

• 21 Feb 2018Conditional

  Permission to convert Bank into 8 no. apartments with all associated alterations to elevations, associated car parking, bin storage & amenity area and all ancillary works. Significant further information relates to apartment 8 being omitted.

  Permission · Monaghan County Council, 1867

• 12 Dec 2017Conditional

  Permission to install ATM machine, new steel access door and all associated alterations to elevations and all ancillary works

  Permission · Monaghan County Council, 17583

Source: National Planning Applications, Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, CC BY 4.0. Applicants are not shown.

Designated sites

No designated site (Special Area of Conservation, Special Protection Area, Natural Heritage Area or proposed one) touches this parcel.

Recorded monuments around it

This parcel is in the zone of notification of 9 recorded monuments.

• MO011-010001 Church
  Description

  Situated towards the bottom of a S-facing slope and now within Clones town. St Tigearnach was descended through his father from the Uí Bhairrce, an obscure Leinster sept who have given their name to the Barony of Bargy in Wexford, but his mother was descended from kings of Oirghialla, at that time a prominent Ulster kingdom occupying the area between the Erne and the Upper Bann. According to what are probably fourteenth century and later Lives, he was educated at Whithorn in England and visited Rome where he collected relics of Ss Peter and Paul before establishing a monastery at Clones where he died in AD 549-50 (Ó Riain 2011, 572-3). Three bishops of Clogher after the first, St Macartin or Mac Caorthainn, were based at Clones rather than Clogher (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 164) and there are many references to Clones in the annals from 714. The monastery was plundered by Vikings in 836 and destroyed by fire in 1095 (McKenna 1920, vol. 2, 1-12), but probably from the 1140s it had been transformed into the Augustinian abbey of Ss Peter and Paul, under which name it is listed, separate from the church or parish church of Clones (MO011-010016-) in the ecclesiastical taxation (1302-06) of Pope Nicholas IV (Cal. doc. Ire, 5, 212). A copy of the Gospels that had reputedly been given to St Mac Caorthainn by St Patrick was enshrined at Clones in the mid fourteenth century, according to inscriptions on its sides that refer to John O Karbri, abbot of Clones who died in 1353 and John Barrdan, the craftsman who made it. The Domhnach was normally held at Clogher, Co. Tyrone, and it is now part of the Royal Irish Academy collection in the National Museum of Ireland. (Shirley 1879, 169-72; McKenna 1920, 2, 36-49; Bourke 2006) By 1414 the abbey was so impoverished that indulgences were granted to fund necessary works to the church and cloister (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 164). It escaped the general Suppression of the monasteries in 1539-40, but c. 1586-7 it was identified by Sir Henry Duke of Castlejordan, Co. Meath (ME052-005----) who leased the premises and land from the Crown as the Manor of Clones. His widow, Mary, married again to Sir Francis Rushe, and the property descended through their daughter Elenor to the Barrett-Leonard family, with whom it remained into the nineteenth century. In a lease of 1629 the remains of the abbey are described as ‘containing half an acre, wherein standeth one church half covered with straw, the kitchen and divers other ruinous edifices, with one garden and orchard’ (Shirley 1879, 173-4; McKenna 1920, 2, 1-27) Of the church founded by St Tigearnach there is no trace. The church known as the Abbey is the chancel of a twelfth century Romanesque style of church, although very plain. It survives as the conserved walls of a structure (ext. dims 12.7m E-W; 6.15m N-S) but most of the N and E walls (H c. 1m) are rebuilt. There is a single round-headed window placed high in the S wall, and the arch (Wth 1.77m) in the W wall led to a nave that has disappeared. On the outer face of the N wall is a carving of a high cross (H 0.25m), much as the Clones high cross (MO011-010005-) appears today, and a shallow hollow (diam. 0.3m) in a nearby stone in the wall is where pilgrims are said to have rested their heads while touching the carving. This church is in a small graveyard (dims c. 25m E-W; c. 20m N-S) that was part of the main graveyard (MO011-010003-) c. 40m to the WSW before the N-S Whitehall St. severed the connection. The round tower (MO010-011002-) is incorporated into the wall of the larger graveyard at W and the stone shrine (MO011-010004-) is inside its S wall. (Wakeman 1875) The earliest map of Clones from c. 1590 (illustrated in Shirley 1879) shows a large church with a crossing tower and transepts close to the round tower. This would be the Augustinian abbey that required work to its cloister in 1414, and it was probably located in the large graveyard E of the round tower (MO011-010002-), as so many churches stand in that relation to their round towers, but of the Clones cloister or the Augustinian transept church there is no trace. This is a National Monument in state ownership: No. 111 See the attached views: _1 from NW; _2 from SE; _3 S window; _4 headstone Compile by: Michael Moore Date of revised upload: 29 November 2016

• MO011-010002 Round tower
  Description

  Situated towards the bottom of a S-facing slope, and incorporated into the perimeter of the graveyard (MO011-010003-) at W. The doorway and lights are completely plain with simple lintels, suggesting an early date. The lintelled and battered doorway, which entered at the first floor, is c. 1.5m the level of the graveyard and faces E. At this level the floor of the tower (int. diam. 2.7m; ext. diam. c. 4.9m) was supported on rebates but above this three floors were supported only partly on offsets and partly on beams set into the walls. The tower survives to the level of the cap (H c. 23m), which is missing. The interior was cleared of rubble in the 1840s when two archaeological floors, the lower with mortar, were noted. Beneath the mortar was a jumble of inhumed remains, undoubtedly disturbed in building the tower from a pre-existing cemetery. Archaeological testing (01E0879) c. 30m W of the round tower produced no related material (Clarke 2003) and further testing (05E0251) c. 35m SW of the tower had a similar negative result (McLoughlin, 2008). (Wakeman 1875, 329-32; Barrow 1979, 171-2) Compiled by: Michael Moore This is a National Monument in state ownership: No. 111 See the attached views: _1 aerial from NW; _2 from NE; _3 doorway Date of revised upload: 29 November 2016 Amended: 13 January 2020

• MO011-010003 Graveyard
  Description

  Situated towards the bottom of a S-facing slope. The original church of St Tigearnach (MO011-010001-) and perhaps other structures like the cloister and church of the Augustinian abbey of Ss Peter and Paul might have been located in the graveyard that incorporates the round tower (MO011-010002-) into its perimeter at W. This is now an oval area (max. dims c. 80m E-W; c. 40-45m N-S) defined by masonry walls with the stone shrine (MO011-010004-) inside the perimeter at S, but at one time it may have been much larger and included the small graveyard around the Romanesque church c. 40m to the ENE. The burials (MO011-010-009-; MO011-010010-) recovered between the graveyards demonstrate this. The headstone inscriptions in both graveyards have been recorded (Mulligan and McMahon 1984, 421-32) and they date generally from c. 1725 in both to c. 1850 at the Romanesque church and to c. 1900 in the main graveyard. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of revised upload: 29 November 2016

• MO011-010004 Shrine
  Description

  Wakeman (1875, 335) describes this feature as a single block of sandstone (dims 1.85m x 0.67m; H 0.94m), which is hollow and shaped into the form of a wooden house or church. It displays construction features such as barge-boards emphasising the junction of the gables and the roof and their extension into decorated finials. It has carvings of ecclesiastics on the gables and the walls, which are now very eroded. It was utilised in post-medieval burial rituals, and modern inscriptions have attempted to appropriate it to various factions with the result that it has split into two portions from rough treatment. It is probably the earliest surviving feature of St Tigearnach’s monastery, which could date to the period of the earliest stone churches in the ninth or tenth century, and it is now displayed inside the perimeter of the graveyard (MO011-010003-) at S. See the attached images _1 from S; _2 from SW Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of revised upload: 29 November 2016

• MO011-010008 Building
  Description

  Discovered during the excavation of test trenches prior to development (Excavation Licence 00E0301). Two walls were exposed. One was interpreted as remains of the 17th/18th century curtain-wall of Clones Castle, which is unlikely, while the other is thought to be remains of a 17th/18th century tower wall. (Moore 2002) Date of upload: 14 April 2011

• MO011-010009 Burial
  Description

  Discovered during test trenching associated with the North East Broadband Project, Phase II (Excavation Licence No. E2335). 'On the eastern side of McCurtain Street, to the north of the junctions with Ball Alley and Abbey Lane, articulated human remains were encountered 0.55m below street level. The remains are presumably associated with the 'wee abbey' located immediately to the east. By reducing the depth of the receiving trench in this area it was possible to preserve these burials in situ.' (Delaney 2009, 443) Date of upload: 14 April 2011

• MO011-010010 Burial
  Description

  Discovered during test trenching associated with the North East Broadband Project, Phase II (Excavation Licence No. E2335). 'During the course of monitoring at Ball Alley human remains were encountered 0.4m below the street surface along the southern side of the carriageway near the entrance gate to the graveyard. Due to the shallow depth of the burials and the presence of numerous pre-existing services on the northern side of the carriageway, it was not possible to re-route the trench. Subsequent excavation uncovered seven articulated human skeletons and a small quantity of disarticulated bone. All of the burials were extended in a supine position and were orientated east-west in the standard Christian burial manner'. (Delaney 2009, 443) Date of upload: 14 April 2011

• MO011-015 House - 17th century
  Description

  Situated just off the shelf of the lower Diamond at Clones on the E side. It is on an E-facing slope, and on the side of the Diamond that was known as Castle Street. The lands of the monastery of Clones (MO011-010001-) were leased to Sir Henry Duke of Castlejordan, Co. Meath (ME052-005----) in 1586 and to Sir Francis Rushe in 1603. Rushe, who was married to Duke’s daughter, Mary, would probably have made a greater effort to develop the property, especially after the death of Sir Brian MacMahon in 1622. In 1623 Rushe was granted a charter for a weekly market and two fairs each year, which would have boosted the development of the town. The castle, as it is always referred to, is first mentioned in a lease of 1636, but it was clearly well established by then. It mentions ‘.. the brew house, kitchen, stable, and half the bawn from the north side of the great door…’ (Schlegel 2003, 53). At the outbreak of rebellion in October 1641 Clones was occupied by rebels and, according to the deposition of Robert Aldrich, the Protestant settlers took refuge in the castle and successfully repulsed three assaults. However, they surrendered on promises of security only to find their homes had been pillaged. At least 30 Protestants were murdered by the rebels, but Aldrich and some others eventually escaped to Enniskillen (Shirley 1879, 174-5). After the battle of Clones in 1643 the rebels departed the area. The castle is represented as a tower on the Down Survey barony map (1656-8), and in the 1680s the ‘Great House’ was leased by the Protestant bishop of Clogher, but it is described as being in a deplorable state. In 1689 the castle was besieged again by a Jacobite force which was repulsed (Schlegel 1999, 56), but the castle was badly damaged. It is described in detail in letters of the tenant John Todd in 1739 as ‘one parlour, three bedchambers with fireplaces… three little rooms without fireplaces or furniture.., a cellar, a brewhouse, a dairy, a stable for eight horses but no coach house, and a gateway..’ (quoted in Ó Drisceoil 2016, 6). The first image of the castle is in a drawing of Clones dated 1741 viewed from the SE. It shows the castle as an oblong building of two stories and garrets on the W side of a rectangular yard which is not the full extent of the original bawn. The doorway is at the first floor reached by steps and it was probably built on a vaulted ground floor or cellar, which would only have narrow lights that are not shown. Just N of the castle is the gateway and there is an unreconstructed part of the castle N of this. A feature like a tower with a conical cap further N is probably the NW angle of the bawn. Gabled structures on the S side of the bawn and in the interior could constitute the brewhouse, stables and other outhouses mentioned in the documents. In 1744 a Mr. Jack Mack proposed to lease part of the castle garden known as the Tanyard and build a new front ‘100 feet long and 14 feet high’, but it is not known if he proceeded with this. He was in the linen trade and may have converted the SE angle of the bawn into the industrial storehouse that survives over this angle. In 1754 the castle was roofless and it was proposed to sell the timber and leave the walls as a ruin. The new road to Monaghan was built by 1766, destroying the N part of the Castle garden, and in 1767 five new houses, known as the Castle Tenement, were built on the site of the castle and these still form this side of the Diamond as a date-stone confirms. A plan of the town dated 1768 depicts the Diamond much as it is today. The gateway of the castle may have survived as references continue to be made to it and to the castle garden. Mr. George Knight of Clones, who has researched the castle through the documents quoted here, identified parts of the structure in buildings behind the E side of the Diamond during 2016, and this can be confirmed (Ó Drisceoil 2016). The positively identified remains consist of a vaulted structure on the S side of the bawn, including the S wall rising over it, and the bawn wall extending E from it to the SE angle of the bawn and then N (L 13m) to where there is a doorway. The vaulted structure (int. dims 10.1m E-W; 3.7m N-S) was largely filled with rubble but it has two narrow loops, probably musket loops, on the N wall and at least one on the S wall, but two other openings in the S wall and one in the N wall directed light downwards into the plank-centred vault. There is an inserted doorway to the outside in the S wall and two large openings in the E wall, but the original entrance might be an inaccessible doorway in the W wall. The first storey of this building has three narrow loops and an inserted fireplace with brick in the S wall, the only surviving part. The vaulted structure was built simultaneously with the remains of the bawn. There are three large slit-opes which could serve as musket-loops between the vaulted structure and the corner of the bawn to the E, and there are four slit-opes (H c. 1.1m; Wth c. 0.15m) splaying to width of c. 0.5m internally in each of two rows in the E wall (surviving H c. 4m). These are the only known remains of the bawn. See the attached view (MO012-015_1) from the Down Survey (1656-8) County map where the castle is represented as a tower. See the attached view (MO012-015_2) from a drawing of 1741. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 26 January 2018

• MO011-015001 Bawn
  Description

  Situated just off the shelf of the lower Diamond at Clones on the E side. It is on an E-facing slope, and on the side of the Diamond that was known as Castle Street. Sir Francis Rushe, the son-in-law of Sir Henry Duke of Castlejordan, Co. Meath (ME052-005----) who had received the initial grant of the lands of Clones monastery (MO011-010001-) probably built the fortified house (MO011-015----) and its associated bawn after 1603. The bawn and its ‘great door’ or gate onto Castle St. are first mentioned in a lease of 1636 (Schlegel 2003, 53). In 1641the castle and bawn provided shelter to Protestants from the area before some were murdered and the survivors escaped to Enniskillen (Shirley 1879, 174-5). The first image of the castle is in a drawing of Clones dated 1741 viewed from the SE. It shows the castle on the W side of a rectangular yard which is not the full extent of the original bawn. The gateway is in the W wall and there is an unreconstructed part of the castle N of this. A feature like a tower with a conical cap further N is probably the NW angle of the bawn. Gabled structures on the S side of the bawn and in the interior could constitute the brewhouse, stables and other outhouses mentioned in the documents. The new road to Monaghan was built by 1766, destroying the N part of the Castle garden or the bawn, and in 1767 five new houses, known as the Castle Tenement, were built on the site of the castle and these still form this side of the Diamond as a date-stone confirms. A plan of the town dated 1768 depicts the Diamond much as it is today. The gateway of the castle may have survived as references continue to be made to it and to the castle garden. Mr. George Knight of Clones, who has researched the castle through the documents, identified parts of the structure in buildings behind the E side of the Diamond during 2016, and this can be confirmed (Ó Drisceoil 2016). The positively identified remains consist of a vaulted structure on the S side of the bawn, including the S wall rising over it, and the bawn wall extending E from it to the SE angle of the bawn and then N (L 13m) to where there is a doorway. The vaulted structure (int. dims 10.1m E-W; 3.7m N-S) was largely filled with rubble but it has two narrow loops, probably musket loops, on the N wall and at least one on the S wall, but two other openings in the S wall and one in the N wall directed light downwards into the plank-centred vault. There is an inserted doorway to the outside in the S wall and two large openings in the E wall, but the original entrance might be an inaccessible doorway in the W wall. The first storey of this building has three narrow loops and an inserted fireplace with brick in the S wall, the only surviving part. The vaulted structure was built simultaneously with the remains of the bawn. There are three large slit-opes which could serve as musket-loops between the vaulted structure and the corner of the bawn to the E, and there are four slit-opes (H c. 1.1m; Wth c. 0.15m) splaying to width of c. 0.5m internally in each of two rows in the E wall (surviving H c. 4m). These are the only known remains of the bawn. See the attached view (MO012-015_2) from a drawing of 1741. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 29 June 2018

Architectural heritage

No building of the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage stands on this parcel.

Designated sites: National Parks and Wildlife Service. Recorded monuments: Sites and Monuments Record, National Monuments Service. Buildings: National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, CC BY 4.0. Works at or in relation to a recorded monument need two months' written notice to the National Monuments Service (National Monuments (Amendment) Act 1994, section 12).

Ground and risks

Radon

About 1 in 10 homes in this area is likely to have high radon levels. Testing a home

Landslides

No susceptibility class on the 1:50,000 map; parts are made ground.

Flooding

The flood maps of the Office of Public Works: floodinfo.ie.

Radon Risk Map of Ireland, Environmental Protection Agency; Landslide Susceptibility Classification, Geological Survey Ireland; both CC BY 4.0.

Download this parcel: DXF, in Irish Transverse Mercator metres, with its neighbours and buildings, for a drawing program; GeoJSON, in WGS 84, for a map; KML, for Google Earth.

Registered freehold land, Tailte Éireann, CC BY 4.0. A parcel is the land of a title, not an address. The owner's name is in the Land Registry of Tailte Éireann: a copy of the folio can be ordered on landdirect.ie, for a fee.