The one thing to find
Somewhere in the nave of St Flannan’s is a broken cross-shaft carved by a Viking named Thorgrim, asking for a prayer in two alphabets at once: Norse runes and Irish ogham. It is the only known bilingual runic-ogham stone in Ireland, and if you have ten minutes in Killaloe, it is the thing to seek out. The cathedral is free, open daily, and sits on the banks of the Shannon at the foot of Lough Derg, so it costs you nothing but the detour.
The cathedral and its stones
The building you walk into was completed in 1225, and in 2025 it marked its 800th anniversary with a festive service. It replaced an earlier cathedral, the so-called ‘Lost Cathedral’ built by Donal Mór O’Brien around 1185 and destroyed almost as soon as it went up. That earlier building did not vanish entirely: its finest survivor is the Romanesque portal now inside the cathedral, dated to the late 1100s and probably its west door. It was reassembled in its current spot in the early 18th century, and is worth close attention, reckoned at over 300 carvings across four orders of chevron and foliate work, threaded with animal and human heads.
A few other things reward a slow circuit:
- The Thorgrim cross fragment, the bilingual runic-ogham stone described above.
- A 13th-century font and the Kilfenora High Cross, the latter rescued from Kilfenora and re-erected here as a free-standing cross during a £200,000 restoration completed in 2001.
- The east window, a three-light window by Warrington of London from 1865, set against the old stone.
- The graveyard, where the oldest marked grave belongs to Bishop Roan (died 1692) under the east window, and the coffer tomb of Elisabeth Brown (died 1719) carries elaborate carving.
This is still an active Church of Ireland cathedral, with a Sunday service at 11.30am, also livestreamed, and a Thursday service at 10.30am in St Paul’s Chapel.
The stone-roofed oratory
In the churchyard stands St Flannan’s Oratory, built around 1100 under Muirchertach Ua Briain, most likely to house the relics of St Flannan. Its barrel-vaulted stone roof and three-order Romanesque doorway are textbook early Irish Romanesque, in the same rare company as Cormac’s Chapel at the Rock of Cashel.
The catch: the interior is currently closed for conservation. You can still see it well from the public footpath that circles the grounds, taking in the weathered animal-head capitals and the fragmented cross-slab from St Flannan’s Well set into the north wall. As dusk falls, the oratory has other tenants, Daubenton’s bats leave the overcroft to feed over the canal, long-eared bats emerge from the bell tower, and pipistrelles work the graveyard.
The bells and the tower
The tower carries a chime of eight bells, cast in 1896 by Matthew O’Byrne of Dublin and hung in 1900 when the tower was raised, the heaviest weighing over 500kg. Tours to the top are by special arrangement, and on a clear day the view runs across Clare and Tipperary to Galway and Limerick.
St Flannan’s Well
A short walk along Royal Parade brings you to the AIB Bank, where St Flannan’s Well sits in the garden and can be visited during bank opening hours. The site has a stone said to bear the saint’s footprint, an ancient twisted ash, and a stone-lined hollow where people traditionally lie for relief from backache. Pilgrimages fall on the feast day, 18 December, with a summer Mass each July.
Getting there and practical tips
- Parking: there’s a small car park beside the cathedral grounds and street parking opposite the AIB Bank, all free.
- Accessibility: the cathedral is partially wheelchair accessible and the ground-floor tour is accessible, but there are no accessible toilets on site; nearby town-centre cafés have facilities. Guide dogs are welcome.
- Tours: the exterior and grounds are open to wander freely; guided ground-floor tours run about 45 minutes, with bell-tower and graveyard tours by arrangement.
- Admission: free, open daily 10am to 6pm.
Allow an hour to see the stones inside, circle the oratory footpath and call at the well. It works as a standalone stop or as the historic anchor of a wider Killaloe and Lough Derg day on the Shannon.