Bishop's Seat, Kilteasheen, Co. Roscommon

The name is not merely traditional colour. What survives here are the remains of a medieval episcopal palace, a category of building rarely encountered in the Irish landscape outside of the better-known cathedral towns, and one that carries a surprisingly violent history for such a quiet site in County Roscommon.

The settlement at Kilteasheen, known in medieval sources as Cill tSesin, is recorded as early as 1243. By 1253, Tomaltach O'Conor, Bishop of Elphin, had established a court or palace here at Kilteisin, and the location made strategic sense: elevated, commanding a natural boundary formed by the river, and close to the ecclesiastical infrastructure of his diocese. The arrangement did not last long. In 1258, the bishop's cousin Hugh O'Conor destroyed the palace along with O'Conor's other residence at Elphin, a reminder that even church property was not insulated from the dynastic conflicts of the O'Conor family during this period. A church associated with the site was listed under the name Kilseisyn in the ecclesiastical taxation of Elphin in 1306, and had probably been founded in the late twelfth century. Despite this documentary trail, no trace of the church building has yet been located; it is thought to lie within or near the enclosure that served as a burial ground roughly thirty metres to the south-west.

The remains of the palace itself are a rectangular structure, approximately twelve metres east to west and just under seven metres north to south internally, with walls surviving in places to around a metre in height, partly rebuilt in later drystone walling. A small fore-building projects from the exterior of the north wall at the west end. Excavation in 2009 showed that the main structure went through many phases of construction and was originally clay-bonded rather than mortared. Just to the south, a circular stone spread about two and a half metres in diameter, built into the slope, may represent a kiln. The excavated interior produced evidence of a floor surface, later industrial use, and two child burials inserted into the structure at some point after its primary use. The field system surrounding the nearby burial enclosure may be broadly contemporary with the ecclesiastical complex, suggesting that what looks today like an isolated ruin was once the centre of a functioning and layered medieval landscape.