friaries ireland

This Franciscan Friary, founded by Owen O'Rourke and his wife Margaret in 1508, was the last Franciscan friary to be founded in Ireland before the Suppression of the Monasteries. The church has a nave, choir, tower and south transept. The west doorway and the window above it are well preserved, as is also the east window, but the windows in the south transept have vanished. The transept has a number of recesses. The tower was converted into living quarters in the 17th century. To the north...

This is an attractive old world village, a National Tidy Town winner, set at the entrance to Multyfarnham Friary. The Fransciscans have a long association with this place, having set up a monastery there in the early 14th century. Despite the dissolution of the monasteries in 1535 and havig been evicted a number of times, they always returned and now run a modern agricultural college.

The church, recently restored in the traditional Franciscan style, incorporates original sections d...

The Friary was founded by permission of Pipe Nicholas for the Observantine Franciscans in 1460. The founder may have been MacWilliam Burke or one of the Barrett family. The church consists of a rectangular nave and chancel with an eastward extension of the nave which is wider than it. The west doorway was added in the 17th century. There is also a chapel running southwards from the east end of the church. The tower was added later, though apparently planned originally as part of the church....

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...

Straide Friary was founded under the patronage of Jordan de Exeter around 1240 for the Franciscans, but at the insistence of his daughter-in-law, Basilia Birmingham, it was transferred to the Dominicans in 1252. The surviving church has a thirteenth century chancel with six small lancet windows, but the rest of the building dates from a fifteenth-century restoration. Its two treasures date from the restoration: a high altar with elegant decorations including a Pieta flanked by donors and a del...

The Ennis Friary, is a Franciscan Friary founded by the O'Briens Kings of Thomond, in the 13th century. The site was originally on an island in the River Fergus aroudn which the modern town of Ennis has grown. Its monuments are famous, notably the McMahon tomb (15th century) with carvings of the Passion of Our Lord....

The Franciscan Friary was founded in the 15th century and is in a remarkable state of preservation. The tower was added after the church was built and is the only Franciscan tower in Ireland which is as wide as the church. The cloister and its associated buildings are complete and an old Yew Tree stands in the centre. The monks were finally driven out by the Cromwellians in 1652.

There are guided tours available on request.

There is a public car park close to the site.

The Friary was founded for the Franciscan Friars by Donchad Cairbreach O'Brien, King of Thomond, sometime shortly before his death in 1242. In the following decades, the church must have suffered much damage, for the only considerable part remaining from the earliest foundation is the choir with its beautiful 5-light east window. Donchad's opponent and successor, Turlough O'Brien, repaired the church and enlarged on his predecessors work in 1287 and again in 1306, and put in blue stained glass...

Augustinian Friary

Eamonn Mac Risderd Butler of Pottlerath founded this Friary for the Augustinian Observants in 1462, but it was his son James who erected the existing buildings between 1467 and 1470, by which time the church had been affiliated to Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. The church consists of one Long rectangle crowned by a central tower, and it has a decorative doorway and window in the east wall. The sedilia in the south wall of the choir is one of the most orn...

Founded in 146 or 1470 by Fineen or Dermot O'Driscoll for the Franciscan Friars of Strict Observance, the church consists of a nave and chancel, as well as a south transept with two chapels. The main doorway is unusual in that it is in the south and not in the west wall. Most of the original windows have disappeared. Although nothing remains of the cloister arcade, the eastern portion of the domestic wing is preserved; it contained the Chapter Room into which a fireplace was later inserted. T...