canon island

Donal Mor O'Brien founded a church on this island in the Shannon estuary for the Augustinian Canons some time towards the end of the 12th century. In the 15th century a tower was built to the south of the nave, and two chapels were added. Most of the domestic buildings are of the same period; they comprise a sacristy next to the church, a chapter room in the east side, and a kitchen, a pantry and refectory on the ground floor of the south wing. There were no buildings in the western portion. The whole monastery was surrounded by a (or built inside an older) circular wall. We know little of the Island's history while the monks inhabited it except that Mahon O'Griffy, Bishop of Killaloe, was buried there in 1483. In 1543, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it was granted to Donatus O'Brien, and afterwards it belonged to various Earls of Thomond. Henry, 7th Earl of Thomond, granted it to Richard Henn in 1712.