A farmer pleaded guilty yesterday to demolishing part of the ancient monastic site at Clonmacnoise. Kilcormac District Court was told a wall at the Nun's Church, dating back to 1026, was demolished when Patrick Dillon, Clonmacnoise House, Shannonbridge, was building a cattle shed on July 23rd last year.
Mr Dillon was prosecuted by the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands after Ms Heather King, an archaeologist with the Department, saw a digger taking down the walls of the church.
She told Judge James O'Sullivan the Clonmacnoise site, which adjoins the defendant's farm, was registered as a national monument in 1995.
He had previously removed part of the Pilgrim's Road on the Eiscir Riada for gravel in spite of warnings from Ms King. She was working at Clonmacnoise when Mr Dillon informed her he was going to build a slatted shed.
The court heard a contractor removed part of the wall of a medieval church and it was used as backfill for the shed.
She told Mr Dillon not to interfere with it further but the following morning she discovered the wall had been rebuilt.
"You can't actually restore it because it's gone; the walls are gone. We could rebuild it but from our point of view it would then be a modern rebuilt wall," said Ms King.
Judge James O'Sullivan said the defendant was before the court for continuing the destruction of Clonmacnoise. "He has to be stopped and if it takes a jail sentence to stop him I'll give him a jail sentence," he said, adjourning the case to December 17th.