The story of Killevy
Killevy is the site of one of the most important early convents in medieval Ireland. It was founded, perhaps in the later 5th century, by St Moninna, whose real name was Darerca and who is remembered locally as Bline. Her monastery, Cill Sleibhe Cuilinn, the Church of Slieve Gullion, became a leading house for nuns in the mountainous country of south Armagh.
The site did not escape the violence of its age. Vikings from Carlingford Lough plundered Killevy in 923. The convent survived and continued under Augustinian nuns through the Middle Ages until it was suppressed in 1542 during the dissolution of the monasteries.
What you see today are two churches built against a common gable wall. The West Church is the older, its massive lintelled doorway dating perhaps to the 10th or 11th century, making it the only surviving pre-Norman church in County Armagh, with the rest of its fabric from the 12th century. The East Church belongs to the Augustinian period and keeps a decorated 15th-century window.
A round tower once stood here but fell in the 18th century and nothing of it remains. A large granite slab in the north of the graveyard is traditionally said to mark St Moninna's burial, and a footpath leads up the mountainside to her holy well, still visited as a place of pilgrimage.