inch cistercian abbey

Cistercians were brought from Furness in Lancashire to construct the monastic buildings, which were laid out according to the accustomed Cistercian ground-plan, with a church on the northern side of an open cloister garth and with community and domestic buildings enclosing the other three sides. Of these, only the choir with its graceful triple lancet windows in the east gable survives to anything like its original height, though the transepts with their rib-vaulted open twin chapels, and the buildings on the eastern side of the cloister garth, are sufficiently well preserved to give a good idea of their original appearance. The monastery was a centre of English influence to such an extent that the Irish were debarred in 1380. Twenty-four years later, the abbey was burned and that, perhaps together with the collapse of a central tower and a dwindling community, gave the impetus to cut down considerably the extent of the nave by building a new west wall to the church near the crossing, which incorporated an earlier doorway.