Religious house - Benedictine nuns

The National Monuments Service's description

In grassland overlooking bogland and the River Clare to W. According to Gwynn and Hadcock (1970, 318-19), this nunnery was founded by 'Cathal Crovderg O'Conor' as a Benedictine monastery c. 1200, becoming Arroasian (Augustinian canons) sometime before 1223, and subsequently the mother house for that order in Connaught. An inquisition taken in 1543 records that it possessed 'a church and belfry, a dormitory, hall, three chambers, kitchen, etc., with precincts of 2 acres' (ibid.). What survives are the faint outlines of a church, cloister and domestic range, now contained within a roughly rectangular graveyard (GA029-096002-). The church (E-W; L c. 20.75m), surviving largely as foundations, comprises a nave (L c. 15.4m, Wth 7m) and slightly narrower chancel (L 5.35m, Wth 5.8m). The only surviving architectural feature is a piscina in S wall of the chancel but OS Letters (O'Flanagan 1927, Vol. 1, 13, also 14-16) mention a large window 'in the round style' in this area. Adjoining the church on S side is a rectangular area (N-S 28.3m, E-W 14.3m), probably the remains of a cloister. This is defined along N and S sides by a number of substantial wall-fragments. These contain two robbed opes, probably doorways, one in NW corner, and the other centrally placed in S wall, to E of which is a robbed window. Extending S from SE and SW corners of the cloister are two rectangular platforms (both N-S c. 7m), possibly the foundations of part of the domestic range. A number cut-stone fragments also survive, including some of 13th-C date. A field system (GA029-096003-) and a holy tree (GA029-061----) are associated. (Kelly 1901b, 383-4)

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. II - North Galway'. Compiled by Olive Alcock, Kathy de hÓra and Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1999).

Date of upload: 05 August 2010

This monument is subject to a preservation order made under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 (PO no. 1/1989).