178 Fiona Beglane and Jerr y O’Sullivan
Fig. 2—Staad Abbey, Co. Sligo: view of the ruined chapel and the eroding cliff face containing the middens in December 2007. The shore chapel at Staad (Latin statio) was the embarkation point for medieval pilgrims en route to Inishmurray. Note the grassy slump par tly covering the low sea cliff.
limestone bedrock, (b) stony glacial till of a maximum visible depth of c. 1.5m, (c) a shallow layer of compact marine sand and (d) a dark, sandy, humic topsoil. In the environs of the church and extending over c. 50m along the cliff, the topsoil layer is deepened and enriched by concentrated midden material. This layer includes mollusc shells, mammal and fish bones, burnt spreads with charred grains and weed seeds, and fire-cracked stones. Several pits and hearths are visible in the section face. The remains of a lime clamp, a souterrain and some other minor features that were recorded in 2000 have now entirely eroded away. Below the cliff, a beach of rounded cobbles slopes steeply towards a wave-cut platform of limestone bedrock that extends out into the bay (Fig. 2).
Seven kilometres out to sea, the island of Inishmurray is visible on the horizon (ITM 557372 853857; RMP SL001-001). There are well-preserved remains of an early medieval monastery on the island, including three churches, three burial-grounds, at least four beehive cells, several leachta or altar cairns, two holy wells and a large number of early cross-slabs and other decorated stones.The focal monument is a tomb shrine for St Molaise, whose remains were venerated by pilgrims on 15 August, a tradition that survived locally until modern times (Fig. 3) (O’Sullivan and Ó Carragáin 2008, 8–10).
On the mainland, Staad lies within the bay closest to Inishmurray, adjacent to a channel forming a natural harbour in the limestone bedrock.These factors would have made it the ideal embarkation point for pilgrims and other travellers to the island.This is reflected in the Latin root word statio, a stopping place or pilgrim station (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970; O’Sullivan and Ó Carragáin 2008, 41).
Staad makes a very late appearance in the cartographic record. The mid-seventeenth-century Down Survey of County Sligo records only that Staad and environs were covered by ‘sandy hills’, presumably sand-dunes of the sort that are piled high on some neighbouring beaches but are entirely absent at Staad today.The absence of the church from the map suggests that it had passed out of use at this time, since other nearby churches are shown, including the parish church at Drumcliffe. There were no covering sanddunes when the building was recorded on early Ordnance Survey six-inch maps of 1837 and 1910. Instead, on these maps it appears as a simple ruin, set among modern field boundaries and labelled ‘Staad Abbey’. There are no historical or documentary references to a church at Staad in any early source that we consulted. It first appears in the printed record in the late Victorian period, when it was described by antiquarian William Wakeman (1893 [1892], 156):‘The natives assert that this Teampull was built by St Molaise for his own accommodation when weather-bound on his way back to the island [of Inishmurray]. The enclosure is now only used for the interment of
