monastery ireland

The monastery was probably founded by St. Feichin of Fore who died in 664. St. Gormgall 'Chief Confessor of Ireland' died and was buried here in 1017. One of the important manuscripts of the Life of St. Feichin was written on the island. The most important ruin is a rectangular church, with a flat-headed doorway.

The doorway may not be original as the lintel of the door is an old cross-slab. The east end of the church is destroyed. Around the church are the remains of beehive huts,...

Famous for its perfect 12th-century round tower and ruined Augustinian abbey. Intricately carved 15th-century high cross in graveyard. Small museum. Ferry with a capacity of 12 is licensed for 199 departs Trory Point, 5 km from Enniskillen on A32 direction towards Irvinestown. Contact Mr William McFrederick, Historic Monuments Branch, Enniskillen....

Ireland's Pleasure Lake, Lough Derg is the largest of the Shannon's lakes, and is almost an inland sea. It is renowned for game and coarse angling, boating, sailing, windsurfing, and skiing. The shores of Lough Derg on both the Tipperary and Clare sides are bound with picturesque villages, including Dromineer, Terryglass, Garry Kennedy and Mountshannon. The lake is dotted with many islands, the most famous of which is Inis Cealtra - Holy Island, which is the site of a 7th century monastic s...

Little or nothing is known of the history of the monastery; its name signifies 'Island of the Foreigners'. Two churches remain. St. Patrick's was originally a simple rectangular church, with a flat-headed doorway, but a chancel was later added to it. Linked to it by an old roadway is The Saint's Church, which is a Romanesque nave-and-chancel church restored in the last century by Sir Benjamin Guinness.

Its main feature is the fine Romanesque west doorway with heads on the capitals an...

The monastery was founded by St. Rioch around 530. It is mentioned in the Annals in 750, 809 and 916, and it was raided by the Munstermen in 115 and 1089. Two churches still remain. The more southerly church is a nave-and-chancel building with round-headed windows in the chancel, and a pointed door in the south wall of the nave. Near the north-eastern point of the island is the other church consisting of a nave, and a transept of almost equal size as well as a sacristy. To the north of the...

Here St. Clomans Mac Lenene founded a monastery of which the round tower and fire house remain.
A building believed to be St. Colmans oratory is nearby....

This monastery was founded for monks who came to the mainland here from the offshore island of Skellig Michael in the 12th or 13th century. As with their former monastery, this one was also dedicated to St. Michael.

The buildings have been partially eroded by the sea. The two remaining churches seem to date however from the 15th century and have windows and a door with dressed stones. Adjoining one of the churches is a 15th century cloister garth with a large hall on the other side...

In the tranquil valley of the River Mattock, a subsidiary of the Boyne, lie the noble ruins of Mellifont, the first Cistercian monastery to be established in Ireland. Founded in 1142 by St. Malachy, the monastery was consecrated amidst great pomp and ceremony in 1157 at a great national synod attended by seventeen bishops and the High King. The new monastic order was successful in re-introducing discipline into what has become a very lax Irish Church. Over forty other Cistercian monasteries w...

Gateway: The Gateway to the old monastic city is the only surviving one of its kind in the country. Originally comprising of a keeper's house and a small tower, the principal remains now consist of two semi-circular archways supported by granite piers. The gateway is of later origin than the other buildings of the lower group, it having been part of the surrounding defensive wall which was constructed to secure the city from attack....

Nothing is known of the history of this monastery beyond the fact that it was dedicated to St. Brendan the Navigator, who lived in the mid 6th century. The remains consist of three churches, three beehive huts, part of the old monastic wall and some inscribed crosses. Of the three churches, St. Brendan's Oratory is rectangular and has a sloping roof, a flat-headed doorway and a square-headed east window. The Saint's Church nearby uses mortar to bind the stones together, and it is probably lat...