abbeys ireland

One of the best preserved in Ireland, this Cistercian Abbey was colonised from Mellifont in 1161. the building of the chancel, and the transepts with their side-chapels, must have begun shortly after this date, though the lancet windows in the east gable were inserted in the 13th century. There is an interesting combination of rounded and pointed arches in the transepts and crossing. The large square tower formed part of the church from the beginning, though it was raised in height at a later...

Cistercian Abbey, one of the finest, if little known abbeys. It features a truly delightful east rose window and an undisturbed air of rural tranquillity which belies its turbulent history....

The site of St. Cannice's Monastery in the sixth-century. Plundered in 913, rebuilt in 1052, burnt I 1116, rebuilt in 1234, and again burnt in 1346. The nineteenth-century church on the site of the Augustinian Priory church retains thirteenth-century pieces and pieces from the nearby fourteenth-century Dominican Abbey. To the east is Aghaboe House (private), a recently restored early eighteenth-century house. In a field to the north is Adam de Hereford's square motte....

Three miles (5km) south of Rathdrum is Whaley Abbey, residence in the eighteenth century of a noted Dublin 'blood' called Buck Whaley. He made a famous bet, which he won , that he would walk to Jerusalem and back within two years....

In 1148 Dermot Mac Murrough brought Cistercian monks here from Mellifont to found a new monastery which he called 'The Valley of Salvation', and Baltinglass in turn was the mother-house of a number of other Cistercian foundations including Jerpoint, Co. Kilkenny. The monastery was the centre of a number of disputes in the 13th century, one with the Archbishop of Dublin and another in which the monks were accused of harbouring 'felons against the English'. In 1377 Abbot Peter was awarded damages...

Sligo Abbey was founded in 1252 or 1253 for the Dominicans by Maurice Fitzgerald, 2nd Baron of Offaly, who was also founder of the town. Having escaped the ravages suffered by the now destroyed Sligo Castle in the 13th and 14th centuries, the Friary was accidentally burned in 1414, but was rebuilt two years later by Friar Bryan MacDonagh with assistance from Pope John XXIII.
In 1568 O'Conor Sligo made a petition to Queen Elizabeth not to dissolve the Friary, and this was granted on t...

William Marshall founded an Abbey here for the Cistercians in 1207, though the monks may have settled here before that date. One of the best preserved Cistercian abbeys in Ireland, its church - splendidly restored in 1974-1980- consists of a nave and chancel with an aisle on each side. Although earlier restorations of 1813 and 1886 have covered much of the walls, the decoration of the capitals and the shapes of the arches can still be seen. The present floor of the church is about 7 feet abov...

Loreto Abbey is the headquarters of the Loreto order of nuns in Ireland. It was here, in 1928, that a young Albanian novice, Agnes Bejaxhiu, came to learn English.
She left after a year to teach in a Loreto School in Calcutta, later becomng famous the world over as Mother Teresa. Email address is contactus@loreto.ie...

The Abbey was erected on the site of an older monastery  some time after 1216 by Geoffrey de Marisco for the Canons Regular of St. Augustine. The Abbey was dedicated to Our Blessed Lady and by 1302 it was the third richest monastery in the Diocese of Ardfert with its Prior being a Lord of Parliament.

Only the church, with a single long nave, remains. The windows, doors and niches made from sandstone can be dated to the 13th century, while th...

This is a remains of a 14th century Cistercian Abbey which is located on the north side of the River Ilen, 1.5km away from Skibbereen....