Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland
Religious house - Augustinian canons
Townparks (3rd Division - Tuam), County Galway, Ireland
The record
- Townland
- Townparks (3rd Division - Tuam)
- County
- Galway
- Country
- Ireland
- First-edition OS map
- Site of St. Johns Priory
- Latest-edition OS map
- St. Johns Priory (Site of)
- Coordinates
- 53.51363, -8.85031
- SMR number
- GA029-184001-
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
Shown on 4 historical map sheets, the earliest the 1753 "Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae" (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).
This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗
The National Monuments Service's description
In the Circular-Rd area, in the centre of Tuam town (GA029-199----): its site is marked on OS 6-inch maps a short distance to NW of 'St. John's Abbey', a late 18th-C house (see Ó Murchú 1970, 14-15). Described as being 'in the suburbs' of Tuam c. 1304 (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 197, also 216). Dedicated to St John the Evangelist, it appears to have been founded by Turloch O'Conor c. 1140 as a priory or hospital, probably adopting Arroasian observance (Augustinian canons) shortly afterwards. It became an abbey c. 1360 and appears to have continued in use until at least 1574 (ibid., 197). Depicted on James Morris's 1720 map of Tuam as an L-shaped building, aligned N-S. No visible trace of it survived by the time of OS Letters (O'Flanagan 1927, Vol. 1, 61) but 1:1056 OS town plan of Tuam (1827-42) shows a rectangular area (22m by 16m) named 'Cemetery of St. John's' between Circular Rd and Dublin Rd. A commemorative plaque, near the entrance to St John's Abbey, marks the site. The head of a high cross (GA029-184002-) was found close by.
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
Nearby in the register
- Cross - High crossunder 1 mi
- House - 18th/19th centuryunder 1 mi
- Graveyardunder 1 mi
- Designed landscape featureunder 1 mi
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.