Barely a mile to the north of Castle Carra, County Mayo (see last Monday, Difficult to Locate without a Guide « The Irish Aesthete) can be another substantial ruin, this time of a religious settlement. Like the castle, Burriscarra Abbey, as it is now popularly known,  is believed to have been established by the Anglo-Norman Adam de Staunton. He granted the land here to the mendicant Carmelite order, founded by St Berthold in 1154. The date given for the establishment of the house at Burriscarra is 1298, just over a quarter century after the first Carmelite friary had been founded in Leighlinbridge, County Carlow. At Burriscarra, the friars did not remain in situ for long. For reasons unknown – perhaps warfare, perhaps devastation caused by the Black Death – by 1383 they had gone, after which the property lay abandoned for some 30 years. 

In 1413, the former Carmelite friary at Burriscarra was given to the Augustinian order which had already established a house elsewhere in the county at Ballinrobe (see Unclear Past, Unclear Future « The Irish Aesthete). The Augustinians appear to have been invited by Edmund and Richard Staunton, descendants of Adam de Staunton. On arrival, the friars found the place in a poor state of repair, these circumstances made worse in 1430 when the buildings were burned, presumably during one of the internecine disputes that bedevilled Ireland throughout the 15th century. In consequence, a Papal indulgence was granted to anyone who visited the church and gave alms for its repair.  After the rebuilding of the friary a dispute arose between the Carmelites and the Augustinians over ownership of the property. However, it appears the Augustinians remained in residence of the friary until, like all other religious houses, it was suppressed in the 16th century. In 1607 the lands of Burriscarra were granted by James I to one John King, who then sold them on to the Bowens, after which, like nearby Castle Carra, they passed into the possession of the Lynch family and eventually being taken into the care of the Office of Public Works. 

Today Burriscarra friary consists of a roofless church with a side aisle on its south-west side and the remains of a two-storey domestic range incorporating a cloister garth to the immediate north. Much of what survives likely dates from the rebuilding of the property in the 15th century, following damage caused by the fire of 1430. Access to the church is through a small round arched window at the west end. At the head of the building, what was once a very substantial east window occupying much of the gable wall was later blocked up and a much smaller opening created. The southern wall had another three large windows and while these remain, all their tracery is lost. Below these, in what would have been the choir, are a sedilia and piscina. The former is demarcated by a trefoil arch concluding on either side with a carved head, one of which has suffered considerable damage. Note also how the decoration of column capitals inside the arch differ from each other and that the ogee-headed window inside the arch is slightly off-centre, as also is the point of the adjacent piscina’s arch. The only window to retain its tracery can be found inside the side aisle, accessed via two large arched openings on the south wall nave. Like nearby Castle Carra and the subsequent 18th century house, what survives of this religious establishment offers us glimpses into the complexities of this country’s history.

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