Tag Archives: Old Church

Remarkably Few Architectural Decorations



‘Ballybogan: Called for some time the priory of de Laudi Dei; was situated in the barony of Moyfinrath, on the river Boyne; and three miles south of Clonard.
A priory was founded here for canons of the order of St Augustin, in the 12th century, by John Comin, under the invocation of the Holy Trinity.
Whilst Hugh Tachmon, Bishop of Meath, enjoyed the episcopal see, Walter the younger, the son of Alured, granted an annual rent of 40s to the prior of this house, out of the manor of Moyaghregh, alias Magagthreth in this county.
1399. By an inquisition taken in this year, it was found that John O’Mayller, a mere Irishman and of the Irish sept of the O’Mayllers, enemies to our Lord the King, was instituted to the priory of the Blessed Virgin in Ballybogan, contrary to the form of the statute of Kilkenny; but Richard Cuthbert did, on the same day, make due proof that the said priory was not under the invocation of the Virgin Mary, but dedicated to the Holy Trinity, and that he was the lawful prior thereof. Cuthbert was accordingly restored to the temporalities.’
From Monasticon Hibernicum by Mervyn Archdale (Dublin, 1786)




‘1446. The priory of Ballybogan was burnt in the beginning of this year. (Dud. Fir.)
1447. In the summer and autumn of this year there raged a great plague, of which the prior of Ballybogan, the prior of Connell, the baron of Galtrim …. and a great number of others in Meath, Leinster, and Munster, died. Some say that 700 priests died of this plague. (Four Masters)
According to Ware’s Annals, the crucifix of Ballybogan, “which”, he says “had been held in great veneration”, was publicly burnt in 1538. The last prior of Ballybogan was Rev. Thomas Bermingham, in whose time this monastery had to surrender its vast possessions, numbering five thousand two hundred acres of arable and pasture land, in various counties. In 1541 all the manors, lands, and liberties of this abbey, with the title and dignity of ” Baron of Carbrie”, were granted by Henry the Eighth to Sir William Bermingham, at a rent of £4 3s 4d.f By the forty-first of Elizabeth, the reversion was granted to Edward Fitzgerald and his heirs. In 1608, King James the First granted to Sir Edward Fitzgerald, Knight, amongst other properties: “The site, etc., of the late monastery of Ballybogan, with all the buildings, orchards, gardens, etc., thereto appertaining, and all lands, customs, and hereditaments in Ballybogan, with a fair there, and a watennill, parcel of the estate of the said monastery”.’
From The Ecclesiastical History of the Diocese of Meath by the Rev. A. Cogan (Dublin, 1862)




‘Close to the river side is Ballyboggan Priory, with a very large cruciform Ch. (of which the transepts have been destroyed), founded in the 12th cent, by Jordan Comin, for Augustine Canons. The priory was burned down in the 15th cent., and subsequently the lands and property fell into the hands of the Bermingham. The length of the Ch. is 193 ft., but there are remarkably few architectural decorations about it. The W. gable is lighted by a long slender single window of E. Eng. date. In the N. wall of the choir are 3 trefoil arched Sedilia.’
From A Handbook for Travellers in Ireland by John Cooke (London, 1906) 



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A Picturesque Ruin



Just about enough survives to give visitors an idea of the former scale of the Franciscan friary on the edge of Armagh city. This was founded by Archbishop O’Scannail in 1263 and according to the Annals of the Four Masters, it was under the patronage of MacDomhnáill Gallogláigh (‘of the Gallowglasses’). The church, running to almost 164 feet, was supposed to be the longest of any of this religious order in Ireland, with a tower added between nave and chancel in the 15th century. Little now remains, because after the friary was suppressed in 1642, it fell into ruin, with Hugh O’Neill staging an ambush within the walls in 1596. The lands on which it stood passed into the control of the Archdiocese in 1620, and almost a century and a half later, during the primacy of Richard Robinson, much of the stone was used to build the garden walls of his new demesne, with the remainder left to serve as a picturesque ruin.



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A Delightful and Unspoiled Treat



‘The cathedral has neither grandeur nor architectural sophistication, but it retains a strong medieval atmosphere. Peering up out of the hollow in which it was built, it presents a stern and frowning countenance, as if looking at its visitors suspiciously and defensively, blinking with surprise that anyone should want to pay it a visit. The casual visitor will be equally surprised. St Laserian’s Cathedral is hidden away down so many twisting lanes that the likelihood of a chance visit is remote. The interested visitor will have to make a determined effort to get here, and the effort will be well rewarded.’
From The Cathedrals of Ireland by Peter Galloway (Belfast, 1992) 





Once an important urban settlement (until 1801 sending two members to the Irish House of Commons) Old Leighlin, County Carlow is now a small village, rather overshadowed by its neighbours on the other side of the river Barrow, Leighlinbridge and Bagenalstown. The best evidence of its former significance is a cathedral dedicated to Saint Laserian, although he was not responsible for establishing the original religious foundation here. That role went to Saint Gobhan, who in 633 participated in a synod here to debate the timing of Easter. Another participant in this synod was St Laserian, who is believed to have advocated that the Irish Church abandon its own method of calculating when Easter should fall and instead follow that of Rome. Otherwise known as Molaise, Laserian subsequently became the abbot of a monastery at Leighlin, but not before he had visited Rome and been consecrated a bishop by Pope Honorius I, which explains why this village should have become an episcopal seat (it was established as one of the five dioceses of Leinster at the Synod of Ráth Breasail in 1111) . Meanwhile, at Leighlin, the monastery flourished and at one point is said to have had a community of some 1,500 monks. This explains why it was raided twice by the Vikings, in 859 and 916, before being totally destroyed by fire in 1060. What can be seen there today all dates from after that catastrophe.  




Work on the present St Laserian’s was begun during the episcopacy of Bishop Donatus (1152-81) and was completed by the end of the 13th century. Sitting stocky and low, as though trying not to be seen, this is one of Ireland’s smallest cathedrals, consisting of an aisleless 82 foot long nave and 59 foot long chancel with a 59 foot tall 16th century tower between them. Two transepts were added in the 13th century but that to the south has long since been demolished while that to the north is now roofless. A very substantial Lady Chapel, almost as long as the chancel, was added immediately to the north of the latter by Bishop Matthew Sanders in the first half of the 16th century. With its plain plastered walls, the nave is barnlike, there being no windows on either north or south sides, and only a small window above the west door, although the addition of several skylights in the roof has made it less dark than must once have been the case. The chancel has walls stripped of plaster and two large windows of three lights at the eastern end of the south wall. Below these is a four-seat sedilia with trefoil heads and shafts. The four-light east window has stained glass by Catherine Amelia O’Brien, a member of An Túr Gloine. Otherwise, the interior is notable for the number of memorials, some 32, all to members of the Vigors family, the first of whom to settle in Ireland, the Rev Louis Vigors, was a Church of Ireland rector in County Cork. His grandson, Bartholomew Vigors, served as Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin for 30 years (1691-1721): his chair can still be found in the chancel. Descendants of the bishop continued to live in the area for the next couple of hundred years, as their memorials scattered throughout the cathedral can testify. As Peter Galloway noted, St Laserian’s is not notable for its architecture or monuments, but instead this ancient place of worship is ‘a delightful and unspoiled treat, grey and bluff and with all the atmosphere of a 13th-century fortress church.’



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What Survives




The mid-13th century porch of St Lachtain’s church in Freshford, County Kilkenny. It is believed that the saint after whom this was named established a monastery here at some date prior to his death in 672, but in the aftermath of the Reformation, the church fell into a poor condition, undergoing extensive renovation in 1731 and again in the mid-19th century. As a result, the sandstone porch at the west end is the only part of the mediaeval monastery to survive. It comprises four orders of ornamented arches, the inner one, the plainest, containing a dedicatory inscription in Old Irish: ‘Or do Gilla-Mocholmoc u Ce[nn]cucain do rigne. Or do Neim ingin Cuirc acus do Mathgamain u Chiarmeic lasndernad in tempul-sa’ (Pray for Gilla Mocholmoc O Cennucain who made it. Pray for Neim [Niamh], daughter of Curc and for Mathgamain O Chiarmeic, for whom this church was made.) As is often the case, the outer order, separated from the other three by a shallow barrel vault, is the most elaborate, separated from the rest by a shallow barrel vault and carved with a step pattern and zoomorphic masks. On the west face are two figurative panels, one depicting a rider figure, the other two ecclesiastics. These, together with a third figurative panel set into the jamb of the inner order, do not appear to be in their original locations and may have been arranged when the church was rebuilt in the 18th century. The upper part of the porch is 19th century.




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Ecclesiastical Ambition




Yet another example of the Church of Ireland’s ambitious building strategy during the 19th century, this is St John’s in Kilturk, County Wexford. Later than most and not part of the Board of First Fruits programme, it was designed in 1859 by Joseph Welland, then Architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the first service being held here three years later. One reason for the relatively late date is that it replaced an earlier church of 1808-12, described by Samuel Lewis in 1837 as ‘a neat edifice whose tower fell down soon after its erection’ and this, in turn, stood on the site of a medieval parish church. The present structure continued to be used for services until the mid-1970s, and after its closure suffered from vandalism, leading to large-scale dismantlement and leaving what can be seen today.




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Of More than Ordinary Interest


‘Clonmines: Ths group of ruins is of more than ordinary interest, as it contains a church which was described by the late G. V. Du Noyer as, in his opinion, quite unique in Ireland, if not in Britain the fortified or Castle Church of Clonmines [see last section of text below]. This singular building stands on a rise of ground adjoining the monastery but detached from it, and when viewed from the westward quite resembles a square castle, the north-east and south-west angles of which are prolonged into small but lofty crenellated turrets. Du Noyer thinks that it is exceedingly probable that this building was erected by Nicholas the clerk at the close of the fourteenth century…’





‘…Clonmines was a parliamentary borough, and elected members of Parliament until the Union. A castle was built here by one of the family of Roger de Sutton, who accompanied Fitz Stephen to Ireland. This castle was in modern times converted into a dwelling-house. Archdall, in his “Mon. Hib.,” states that “Clonmines is a borough town, in the barony of Shelburne, six miles south-east of Dunbrody. The family of Cavanagh founded a monastery here for Eremites following the rule of St. Augustine. In A.D. 1385 it was enlarged and beautified by Nicholas the clerk, son of Nicholas; and the friars of the order of St. Dominick afterwards obtained possession of it. Nicholas Woding was the last prior…’





‘…Fraser, in his Survey (Robert Fraser, Statistical Survey of the County of Wexford, 1807), tells us that the Danes had a mint at Clonmines, and we learn from the State Papers that Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Queens Mary and Elizabeth, all worked the silver and lead mines here. On the 12th of January, 1552, Joachim Gunderfilgen explains to the Privy Council that he is building a workshop at Ross, and was unable to send particulars about the mines. Later on Mr. Robert, Record Surveyor of Mines for the Privy Council of England, sends an account of the silver and lead got at Clonmines and molten at Ross. In the time of Queen Elizabeth, Walter Pepparde had charge of these mines for the Queen; his son Anthony seems to have been the founder of Peppard’s Castle, Co. Wexford.’
Extracts from Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Volume VI, Fifth Series, 1896.





‘I allude to a fortified church, or rather castle-church, forming one of the groups of ecclesiastical ruins at Clonmines on the shore of Bannow Bay, in the county of Wexford. This singular building stands on a rise of ground adjoining the monastery, but detached from it, and when viewed from the westward quite resembles a square castle, the north-east and south-west angles of which are prolonged into small but lofty crenellated turrets…The doorway nearly facing the spectator conducts to the church, and the arched recess adjoining it may have been intended for a tomb or seat, and probably the former. Externally this church measures thirty-seven feet by twenty-six feet, the walls being five feet thick, thus imparting to it an unusual degree of strength and solidity; the parapet walls are about two feet eight thick , and are all embattled.
The east wall is pierced, at the height of about seven feet from the ground, by a small window of two pointed lights. It is not till we enter this building that its true character and object become apparent, and we at once perceive that we are in a lofty arched room, half church and half residence. The eastern end of this room forms a square of sixteen feet six inches, and is groined with massive chamfered ribs, springing from each corner, and crossed by others, springing from the sides. This groining defines the limits of the church; the remaining western portion being simply arched, and is somewhat lower than the eastern, thus forming a flat typanum overhead, against which was laid the wooden partition which screened off the living room. In the sill of the window on the south side, is a small piscina; and in the north and south walls, at their junction with the east wall, there are small square unornamented aumbries; to the right of the door in the west wall there is a small stoop.’ 
Extracts from ‘Notes on some Peculiarities in Ancient and Mediaeval Ecclesiastical Architecture’, by George Victor Du Noyer, Esq in Journal of the Kilkenny and South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society, Volume V, New Series, 1864-66


Please note: The remains at Clonmines, County Wexford stand on private land and are not open to the public.
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Norman Wisdom


Nine years ago, Wexford County Council opened the first phase of ‘The Norman Way’, a 65-kilometer self-guided heritage trail along the south-east coast, which leads to a variety of mediaeval buildings in diverse stages of repair. According to the website promoting this route, while the Normans invaded England in 1066, ‘a century later they came to Ireland,’ thereby suggesting that their arrival in this country was an altogether peaceable affair. Furthermore, apparently, ‘as generations of Normans made their home here, their Norman way of doing things enhanced everyday life in Ireland.’ It’s open to question whether the native Irish were delighted to welcome the arrival of Norman wisdom. As Tony Canavan of History Ireland has observed, ‘from a historian’s point of view, on the trail’s website and information panels, ‘the presentation of the Normans (setting aside questions of definition) may raise an eyebrow’ since they are portrayed not as invaders but as though they were modern-day immigrants. It is easy to understand the appeal of creating such a route – the official site expresses hope that this initiative will stimulate commercial and community benefits in the areas through which it runs – but this ought not to be at the expense of historical accuracy. 





Although of Norman origin and hard to miss as it rises above the flat Wexford countryside, Ballyteige Castle is not one of the sites included in The Norman Way. For several hundred years, this was one of the seats of the Anglo-Norman Whitty family, with references to its members being found in Irish documents from 1247 onwards; in 1418 Robert Whitty of Ballyteige became Bishop of Ferns, an office he held for the next 40 years. The original castle is said to have been burned by Art Mac Murrough Kavanagh in 1408, so what can be seen today – a four-storey tower house – was constructed after that date. What makes the site particularly fascinating, and important, is that so much remains, including much of the bawn wall and two large circular towers at the north-east and north-west. Attached to the tower house and running along the east side is a later house, now abandoned and boarded up, and behind this is what would have been a substantial courtyard enclosed by the western wall. It is known that the Whittys remained in occupation of Ballyteige until the mid-1650s when, like so many other Roman Catholics, Richard Whitty had the property taken from him. Ballyteige was then granted to the Colcloughs of nearby Tintern Abbey (see The Little Sister « The Irish Aesthete) and it was later sold to an Edward Meadows. It appears to have been occupied until relatively recently, but is now abandoned and falling into dereliction. 





Some two miles north-east of Ballyteige Castle can be found a cemetery surrounding what remains of a mediaeval church called Grange, thereby suggesting it was once part of a monastic estate. On the church’s interior north wall is a large and well-preserved monument to Walter Whitty of Ballyteige. In April 1594 he had been kidnapped by Spanish sailors whose vessel was then passing along the Wexford coast, and carried back to their country after they declined payment for his release, declaring that ‘they desired more the credit in Spain of having taken a great gentleman prisoner, than any ever so great ransom.’ (cited in Journal of the Waterford & South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society, Vol IV, 1898). Somehow, Walter Whitty managed to find his way back home and spend the rest of his days at Ballyteige where he died in 1630, but the marble monument inside the church dates from 1647. The Whitty coat of arms features a lion rampant, but locals, perhaps unfamiliar with these animals, preferred to believe it was a cat. This, in turn, gave rise to a legend that a feline murderer was responsible for Whitty’s demise. There seem to be two versions of the story. In one, Walter Whitty, having failed to shoot any rabbits while hunting, took out his wrath on a cat he saw sitting on a sandbank. When he returned home to Ballyteige Castle, a cat on the premises took its revenge by lunging at his throat and killing him. In the other version, Whitty seduced the daughter of a local witch and then, having taken her out to see in a boat, drowned the girl. Hearing of this, the witch transformed herself into a cat, lunged at Whitty’s throat and killed him. Strangely, neither account features in the Norman Way literature. Neither does Ballyteige Castle, which could benefit from official attention as a building that holds evidence of human habitation across many centuries, from the Normans to the present day. 

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A Fitting Memorial


In 1887, Constance Duguid, daughter of a wealthy wine merchant based in Dover, came to Ireland to visit her sister Madeleine who lived in Myshall, County Carlow as wife of the local rector. During her visit, Constance met Rupert George Inglis Brady, heir to his family estate and then living in Myshall Lodge. The couple became engaged, but while out riding she was thrown from her horse and died. Constance was buried in the churchyard at Myshall, where her father John Duguid erected a life-size white marble statue from Dublin sculptor Thomas Farrell: it depicts a young woman in gauzy garments holding a dove. When Duguid’s wife Adelaide died in 1903, she asked to be buried beside her daughter, but by this time Farrell’s work had begun to show signs of weathering. Therefore, a decision was taken not just to move it indoors, but also to build a new church in which the sculpture would be placed.




Work on the construction of the Adelaide Memorial Church of Christ the Redeemer began in 1907, its architect being George Coppinger Ashlin, who as a young man had worked with Edward Welby Pugin, eventually marrying the latter’s sister Mary: before their partnership broke up in 1870, Pugin and Ashlin designed a number of churches in Ireland, not least the cathedral in Cobh, County Cork. Ashlin was 70 when he took on the commission in Myshall, and took his inspiration from Salisbury Cathedral, with which the new building has similarities, although contrary to popular belief, the church is not a miniature copy of the English cathedral. Thought to have cost Duguid some £50,000, it was consecrated a few months after his own death in May 1913. The Adelaide Memorial church is in the early English style, cruciform in design with an ornate tower and spire rising above the entrance porch in the south-west corner. Below a steeply pitched roof of Westmoreland slate, the extensively buttressed walls are faced in limestone resting on a five-foot base of locally quarried granite.





Inside the church, a nave without aisles leads to the chancel at the east end, with transepts on either side, that to the north serving as a mortuary chapel to the Duguids, that to the south fronted by a pulpit incorporated into an oak screen with the vestry beyond. Throughout the building, the walls and vaulted ceiling are entirely faced in pale Bath stone, with a variety of marbles, including stones from Galway and Kilkenny, used for columns and other architectural elements. The bosses at the intersection of each bay on the ceiling are either foliated or else are carved with images of the evangelists, the Duguid coat of arms, or the intertwined initials of Adelaide and John Duguid. Below the chancel’s east window is a panel in mosaic, mother of pearl and gold leaf depicting the Last Supper. Many of the church’s decorative details came from English manufacturers. The black and cream mosaic floor, for example, was provided by Oppenheimer and Co of Manchester, while James Powell & Sons was responsible for the stained glass. The clock in the tower came from Joyce of Whitchurch in Shropshire, and the bells were made by Taylors of Loughborough. The mortuary chapel in the north transept is particularly fine, its archway carved with thistles and roses (emblems of the respective countries of origin for John and Adelaide Duguid). Thought to have been inspired by a screen in St Giles’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, that in the mortuary chapel is made of wrought iron and copper, and features doves carrying olive branches, roses, fleur-de-lis and the Duguid couple’s entwined initials. Inside, the space is dominated by Farrell’s white marble statue, set on a six-foot-high pedestal of Peterhead marble which carries the following inscription: ‘Remembering the admiration with which she used to view similar monuments in Italy, this statue of Innocence fit representing her, is placed here to the memory of “Conny” Constance Louise Eugenie Duguid by her sorrowing parents, 1888.’ The remains of both her parents are interred in the same space. Still wonderfully maintained, despite the high costs involved, the Adelaide Memorial church is one of the unexpected delights of this part of the country.


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Two Ruins, One Site


Located in County Meath, but close to the border with County Offaly, Castlejordan is said to take its name from a man named Jordan, but who he might have been is open to conjecture. One suggestion is that he was a Norman knight called Jordan de Courcy, a relative (possibly a son) of John de Courcy who in the late 12th century conquered much of eastern Ulster. According to this story, following the senior de Courcy’s downfall, Jordan fled or was exiled to Exeter but later returned to Ireland and erected a fortress which came to be known as Castlejordan. The alternative version is that the place owes its origins to a later settler, Jordan Comyn who is held to have founded an Augustinian Priory a few miles away at Ballyboggan. 





Found beside the river Monagh, by their scale the ruins of Castlejordan indicate that this was once a fortress of some importance, used to defend the inhabitants of the Pale against incursions by the local O’Connor family. It appears that during the 16th century, the castle regularly changed hands between the English and Irish, although towards the end of the Tudor period it was held by Sir Henry Duke. Following his death in 1595, the property was inherited by one of Duke’s daughters, Mary who married Richard Gifford, and it would appear their descendants remained living in the area until the early 19th century, although the castle came under attack several times during the Confederate Wars of the 1640s. How much of the building survived from this period is open to question: by 1837, in his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, when writing about Castlejordan, Samuel Lewis simply noted ‘here are the ruins of a castle, formerly occupied by the Giffords.’ The last member of the family associated with the site appears to have been Marie Giffard (note the slight difference in spelling of the surname by the late 18th century). She married Frederick William Lewis Augustus, Count de Lusi, who from 1834-38 served as Prussian Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of Greece. What remains of the castle is in two parts. That closer to the river is a squat, three storey structure, the north-west front flanked by a pair of circular towers, and with tall chimneys on two gable ends. This might be considered complete in itself, but rather strangely, some distance to the south is another structure, a single tall, slender tower at least five storeys high and with masonry on one side indicating it was once part of a bigger building (but now forming the backdrop to a private garden, rather like a modern version of the 18th century folly). Has Castlejordan castle been the subject of a detailed study or archaeological survey? It would seem not, but any further information on the place would be fascinating to see. 




A short distance to the west of the old castle lies another ruin, this time of a Church of Ireland church. Samuel Lewis advised readers that this was built in 1826, likely on the site of an earlier place of worship, since records survive showing that services were held in Castlejordan during the 17th and 18th centuries: In 1693, for example, the church and chancel here were recorded as being in good repair. According to Lewis, the new building was constructed at a cost of £664, 12 shillings and one penny. On the other hand, the Parliamentary Directory of 1846 gives a figure of £923, one shilling and six and a half pence. Both sources agree that the expense was borne thanks to a loan from the Board of First Fruits, and the later document also provides the helpful information that while the church could hold 100 persons, attendance averaged 40. Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic chapel had an attendance of 600. As the Parliamentary Directory noted, while the Protestants of the parish amounted to 60, the number of Roman Catholics was 4,024. By the early 20th century, the church in Castlejordan was united with a number of other parishes and eventually closed for services in 1978. Today, just the tower which would have stood at the west end of the building, still remains in place, like a response to the singular tall tower of the older castle to the south.  

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A Very Superior Style of Sculpture and Architecture


‘Abbey of Sligo: A monastery was founded in this town A.D. 1253 by Maurice Fitz Gerald, then Lord Justice, under the invocation of the Holy Cross, for friars of the Order of St. Dominick. It is seated pleasantly, on the river Gitley, and near the sea.
In 1270, 1360, and 1394, the town was destroyed by contending factions, and the monastery pillaged; and in 1414 there were but 20 Friars resident in it. The next year the whole pile was consumed by fire. This misfortune being represented to Pope John XXIII, then present at the Council of Constance, he issued the following Apostolic letters:’ 






‘ “John, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to all Christian believers, who shall see these present letters, salvation and apostolic blessing.
It having been represented unto us, that the church and house of the Dominicans at Sligo, in the diocese of Elphin, in which it is affirmed twenty brothers have long devoutly served God, were lately burnt by fire, and that the prior and some of the brethren of the order desire to repair said church and house, a work of considerable expense, the means to defray which they do not possess. We, consulting the honour of said church, and willing that it should be repaired, that the faithful may resort thither more freely for devotion, and be desirous to contribute more liberally towards its repairs when they shall find themselves replenished with celestial gifts: relying, as we do on the mercy of the Omnipotent God, and by the authority of his blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, do compassionately relax ten years, and as many forty days of penance (decem annos et totidem quadragenas) enjoined on all penitents and those who have confessed, on the feasts of the assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary and St. Patrick shall devoutly visit the aforesaid church, and contribute to its repairs.
Our will is, that if there is any indulgence, either for ever or for a certain time, granted by us, to those who shall visit and assist in repairing said church and house, that it shall from henceforth be null and void. Dated at Constance, the 16th of the Calends of February, in the 5th Year of our Pontificate, A.D. 1415”.’






‘The present building was now begun in a very superior style of sculpture and architecture. Among its principal benefactors were O’Conor, Lord of Sligo, and Peirce O’Timony, a man of considerable wealth and property, whose statue was placed in the cloister. There are two large chapels, divided by a square belfry: the tower is entire, except the battlements at the top. The arches are lofty, and enriched with foliage and angels. The three sides of the cloisters are covered by an arched roof. The front and sides of the altar are ornamented with Gothic arches, foliage, and tracery, and there are pedestals for statues. The eastern window is very beautiful, and a stone gallery surrounds the nave. Several feet from the ground is the tomb of O’Conor and his lady, kneeling on each side of an altar. The Gothic arches, fluted pillars, and multiplicity of minute and curious ornaments, make us wonder at the high degree to which the arts of sculpture and architecture were now carried, and particularly how much money could be procured for the accomplishment of such a work in a country torn by rebellion and domestic dissension, as was the case with Ireland at this time… An inquisition, on the 27th of Elizabeth, finds this monastery had a church, a steeple, cemetery, and two other stone buildings, a fishing weir, with some parcels of land.’ 


From The Antiquities of Ireland by Francis Grose, Vol. I (London, 1791)
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