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,...

Situated on an island in Lough Ree, this monastery was founded probably in the first quarter of the 6th century by St. Diarmuid, teacher of St. Ciaran of Clonmacnois. The island is also associated with the legendary Queen Maeve who is said to have been killed by a stone fired by the sling of an Ulsterman from the shore one mile away, while she was bathing there. The earliest structure is probably St. Diarmuid's, a small rectangular tomb-shrine with antae and a flat-headed doorway. Twelve feet...

This early monastery is dramatically situated on the slopes of a barren and rocky island which stands sentinel against the Atlantic waves on the south-western coast of Ireland. Tradition attributes the foundation of the monastery to St. Finan. The deaths of some of its monks are recorded in 823, 950 and 1044, but the monastery continued till the 12th or 13th century when its monks transferred to the mainland at Ballinskelligs. The monastic remains are sited on a saddle in the rock about 550 f...

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...

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....

Shortly after the Norman invasion, about 1206, a hospital for the sick and infirm was founded here by Ursus de Swemele and his wife Christina, the care of the hospital being put in charge of a religious community. By the end of the 13th century, it was taken over by the Augustinians or Crutched Friars, and the subsequent history of the Abbey was an uneventful one. After a period of decline it was reformed by the Observantines in 1519.

At the dissolution of the monasteries, after the Re...

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...

Ireland's premier monastic site is set in tranquil and inspiring surroundings on the banks of the River Shannon. The site includes the ruins of a cathedral, two round towers, eight churches, three high crosses as well as a large collection of early Christian grave slabs
Features include a visitor centre and museum display, a multi-lingual audio-visual presentation, a coffee shop and a tourist information office....

Roundstone Bog and Wilderness Walk:

Connemara's finest hill and bog walk through Errisbeg and Roundstone Bog. A world heritage site with its hundreds of lakes and islands, Dogs Bay the regions finest beach, Inis Ni and the Aran Islands. See the landing site of the first ever non-stop transatlantic flight and Marconi station, where the first ever flight transatlantic radio messages were transmitted to Nova Scotia, Canada 1907.

12 Bens Mountain Walk:

Cl...

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...