Church Micro IE 175 - St. Maelruain’s Multi-Cache

Saint Maelruain’s Church of Ireland is located on the Main Street in Tallaght, on the south-western outskirts of Dublin and is a parish of the Church of Ireland. This three stage multi will bring you to an ancient Christian site with a long and distinctive history. The cache is a tupperware box placed with the kind permission of Revered Deverell. The graveyard main gates are only open during daylight hours.

St. Maelruain founded a monestery in Tallaght  in 769 A.D. He first came to Tallaght as a monk in the year 774. Cellacht Mac Dunchada was the king of Leinster at the time and he gave the land to the monks. Maelruain was the leader of a new religious movement called “Servants of God” or “Céli De”. This monastery became an important centre of spiritual life. St Maelruain died in 792 and was buried in Tallaght. In 811 the monastery was destroyed by the Vikings, but the destruction was rectified.St. Maelruain’s Church of Ireland now occupies the site of the original monastery. .

Three outstanding religious texts, "The Martyrology of Aengus", "The Martyrology of Tallaght" and "The Stowe Missal", were compiled here. The 'Rule of Tallaght' and the 'Teaching of Maelruain' reflect the spirit of the Ceilí Dé reform. All these manuscripts or copies may be seen in the Royal Irish Academy in Dawson Street.

The present church was designed by the renowned architect, John Semple, in 1829. The tower predates the present church and was built in the Middle Ages and is all that remains of an earlier medieval church that was demolished in 1820. It was part of the fortifications of The Pale, which separated those subjects of the Crown within from the native Irish. Tallaght was often raided by the O'Toole and the O'Byrnes and the tower served as a watch post to give warning against these raids.

The graveyard has some tombstones dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, and some even from the 17th century. The graves of the artists Oisin Kelly, Evie Hone and Elizabeth Rivers are in the new graveyard. </

The starting coordinates of this cache will bring you to St Maelruain's Losset . This is a wide and shallow granite stone trough or font on the left hand side of the churchyard gate. It may have gotten its name because it was similar in shape to the troughs used in bread making years ago. Stand at the Losset and look up at the tower.

Stage 1 The Northerly coordinates:

A= The first digit in the first date

B= The second digit in the first date

C= The first digit in the second date

D= The second digit in the second date

E= The last digit in the second date

Stage 2

Walk around the corner and count the number of large steps leading to the tower. Only count the steps before the small square landing at the gated entrance to the tower. Do not count the two smaller steps at the top. Your answer should be an even number.

F is the number of steps

The Northerly Coordinates are N53° {(F+E)-1}}. (A+C) D (B-A)

Stage 3

Walk along the path and around the church until you come to a white sign with the title Graveyard Rules. A fee of ??? is payable before a headstone can be placed. Call this fee G H I

Note the four digit year on the bottom right hand corner of the sign .

The first digit of the year = J

The Westerly coordinates are :

W006° JG . (G+H+J) B H

Happy Hunting

******PLEASE STICK TO THE PATHS IN THE CEMETERY WHERE POSSIBLE*******

THERE IS NO NEED TO DISTURB THE GRAVES TO RETRIEVE THE CACHE

Please take care when returning the cache to its hiding place. Please be careful of muggles.

Note:

***The main gates may be locked in the evening, they close approximately at sunset. There is a side pedestrian entrance behind the house adjacent to the church on the left hand side. Please see the waypoints. This gate is not locked but it is rusty and may be hard to open.***

LEAVE NO TRACE

The cache has been placed in accordance with the 'Leave no Trace' principles which may be inspected at http://www.leavenotraceireland.org/seven-principles. Please ensure that you respect these principles when trying to find the cache

****A very big thank you to Rev. William Deverell who kindly gave me permission to place this cache.

It is very much appreciated****

The Church Micro IE series is open to everyone; if you have a church you would like to place a cache at then please contact THE_Chris through Geocaching.com. This is to keep track of the numbers of the churches and give you the general format for the cache page. In the UK there are thousands of caches in the series so we have some catching up to do! Also, if you currently have a published cache at a church that you would like to include in the series, get in contact and we can add it.