Aghagower Round Tower and Church

In Aghagower, ten minutes from Westport, a round tower and a ruined church stand in the graveyard of a monastery founded, tradition says, by St Senach, whom St Patrick made bishop here. Its name, Achadh Fhobhair, means the field of the springs, and it lay midway along Tóchar Phádraig, the pilgrim road from Ballintubber to Croagh Patrick, which made it one of Mayo's notable church centres. The tower, built in the late 11th or 12th century, stands about sixteen metres to its fourth floor, with its round-headed doorway high on the east side; local lore says lightning blew its top half a mile away, and the small conical capstone now sits on a pedestal beside the modern church. The late medieval church beside it reuses fragments of an earlier one. Around them are the pilgrims' stations: Patrick's Bed and two holy wells, one with a sheela-na-gig in its enclosure. Reviewers note that you can step inside the tower through a later doorway.