rathmullan carmelite friary

A Carmelite friary founded by MacSwiney, Lord of Fanad, in the 15th century. It consists of a nave-and-chancel church with south transept and some domestic buildings. The friars still seem to have been in occupation as late a 1595 for in that year George Og Bingham raided it and took 24 Mass Vestments, church plate and other things.

It was leased to Captain Ralph Bingley in 1602, when it consisted of one ruinous church, a steeple, a cloister, a hall, three chambers, an orchard and one and a half quarters of stoney and infertile land.

King James granted it to James Fullerton in 1603, and about 1617 Bishop Knox took possession of it. He converted the south transept and the nave into a residence for himself, adding a western extension to the transept, inserting new windows, adding two fine corner turrets in the Scottish style at the east end of the nave and building a fine new doorway in dark stone, putting his own initials and the date 1617 on it. Of the domestic buildings only the north-east corner survives, the upper part of which may have been the Abbot's room.<