friaries ireland

The Castle:
this Norman castle was built by Robert de Ufford, Lord Justice of Ireland, in 1269. But it passed into Irish hands seven years later when it was taken by Hugh O'Conor, King of Connacht. It was restored in 1280. The O'Kellys gained possession of the castle in 1308 when Donogh O'Kelly slaughtered many of the inhabitants. But the O'Conors took it again in 1341. Taken by the Earl of Kildare on an expedition to Connacht in 1499, it was granted to Mac William Bourke in 154...

This Franciscan Friary was founded in 1353 on the site of an older monastery founded by St. Conall in the sixth century. The buildings consists of a church with nave, choir, south transept and aisle, and some domestic buildings.

There are two fine tomb niches in the north wall of the church. Tradition says that the friars were expelled from the monastery only a few weeks before the Battle of Aughrim in 1691....

The Friary was founded some time before 1400 by the O'Dowdas, princes of Hy Fiachrach, for the Eremites of St. Augustine. The church dates to shortly after the foundation and has a finely ornamented west doorway with 2 human heads, and a window above it....

The Friary was founded around 1351 by Sir Raymond de Burgo for the Franciscans. It is the most extensive and best preserved of the Franciscan friaries in Ireland. Although founded in the 14th century, most of the building dates from the late 15th century. The church consists of a nave and chancel, and has a double south transept with a later chapel added to it.

The church windows, which are all well preserved, present a good cross-section of the types of window used in the late 15th...

The Friary was founded in 1507 by the McDonaghs. The unusual church has almost identical windows at each end. The church was entered by doors in the north and south walls. The most remarkable feature of the church is the central tower and belfry, which also acted as a rood-screen, with a narrow passage and two rooms on the ground floor, and an arrangement of three arches (the central one being taller than the other two) on the first floor which is only reachable by a dangerous set of steps on...

The ruins of the Franciscan friary founded by Archbishop Patrick Scannail in 1263-64. The surviving walls are those of the long nave-and-chancel church, into the centre of which a tower was inserted in the 15th century. Near the eastern end is a rare extant example of a medieval altar, and remnants of the south aisle are still visible at the western end of the nave. Nothing remains of the cloister which lay to the north of the church. After the friary was dissolved in 1542, the doors and wind...

Overlooking Lough Arrow, this Dominican friary was founded in 1507 and stands today as a complete16th century ruin with no later appendages. There is a headstone in the nave dating from 1717....