Cloonameehan Monastery

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East gable of the nave

The monastery Cloonameehan ( English Cloonameehan Priory ) was founded in 1488 by Eóghan Mac Donnchadha as a house of the Dominicans in today's townland Rinnarogue in the south of County Sligo , Ireland , in the diocese of Achonry . The monastery was closed around 1584 as part of the Reformation .

Geographical location

The monastery is located between Ballymote and Tobercurry directly on today's R296, about two kilometers northeast of the small town of Bunnanadan. The terrain is characterized by hilly drumlins , and the ground on which the remaining facility stands is gently sloping in a southerly direction towards the road. The soil in the region is the gray-brown podsol , which occurs quite frequently in Ireland, and is relatively poor in nutrients due to the particularly high rainfall in the region.

The place name Cloonameehan ( Irish Cluain Uí Mhiacháin , translated "pasture of the Ua Miacháin") refers to the family of the Ua Miadhacháin, who were resident in the region.

history

Cloonameehan was a small establishment not mentioned by Sir James Ware in his listing of Irish monasteries. Only the Dominican historian Thomas Burke was able to prove the foundation in the 18th century when he discovered a copy of a letter from Innocent VIII in the papal archives . Similar to the foundation of the Terziaren in Ballymote in 1442, it was a concerted action in which three founders petitioned the Pope to approve the foundation of three houses. Together with Cloonameehan two houses in the dioceses of Kildare and Meath were applied for, but they did not get beyond the planning stage to any recognizable extent. Despite its late founding, Cloonameehan did not belong to the observance movement and stayed away from it.

The founding family of the MacDonaghs (Irish Mac Donnchadha ) was closely connected to the Dominican monastery in Sligo . Brian Mac Donnchadha was prior in Sligo and rebuilt the monastery after the fire in 1414. The founder Eóghan Mac Donnchadha was not found in the genealogies by O'Sullivan, but in his opinion it could be identical to the MacDonagh of Ballymote, who fell in a dispute with the O'Donnell in 1516. Cloonameehan was under the direction of Sligo and therefore had the character of a missionary outpost in a remote rural region.

The monastery owned a quarter land called Rinnarogue - the name adopted for the townland. Similar to Rathfran , the residents of this property had to pay tithing , but in this case that probably only related to taxes on harvest yields.

Around 1584 the monastery was abolished and in 1588 it fell to Richard Kyndelinshe (or Kindlemersh). Later owners included the Taaff family and the Earl of Shelburne.

architecture

West view of the monastery ruins with the church on the right and the remains of the outbuildings on the left

The structure still preserved confirms the founding time at the end of the 15th century. The church, which extends in a west-east direction, has a rectangular floor plan with external dimensions of 18.7 m × 7.8 m. The walls were built of rough limestone using mortar . The north wall is missing, and only the east gable is almost at its original height with a simple, two-part late Gothic window, which is closed at the top by keel arches and protected by a roof . Very little of the outbuildings has survived. However, the remains of the vault indicate that these were two-story.

Web links

Commons : Cloonameehan Friary  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gwynn gives Eugene as a first name because the Latin text names Eugenius; the correct Irish form is Eóghan, as O'Sullivan points out on p. 83; Gwynn names Mac Donogh, O'Sullivan uses Mac Donagh; both spellings denote the same family, see Edward MacLysaght: The Surname of Ireland . 6th edition. Irish Academic Press, Dublin 1985, pp. 84, 86 .
  2. ^ A b c d Aubrey Gwynn , R. Neville Hadcock: Medieval Religious Houses Ireland . Longman, London 1970, ISBN 0-582-11229-X , pp. 220, 223 .
  3. ↑ a b c Ursula Egan, Elizabeth Byrne, Mary Sleeman (eds.): Archaeological Inventory of County Sligo . Volume I: South Sligo. Stationary Office, Dublin 2005, ISBN 0-7557-1942-5 , pp. 422-423, 562 .
  4. ^ In square G 61 12 of the Discovery Series 25 map sheet . Ordnance Survey of Ireland, ISBN 0-904996-04-2 .
  5. ^ FHA Aalen, Kevin Whelan: Fields . In: FHA Aalen, Kevin Whelan, Matthew Stout (Eds.): Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape . Cork University Press, Cork 1997, ISBN 1-85918-095-7 , pp. 140-141 .
  6. ↑ Cluain Uí Mhiacháin Thea. Retrieved June 22, 2014 .
  7. ↑ Deirdre Flanagan, Laurence Flanagan: Irish Place Names . Gill and Macmillan, Dublin 1994, ISBN 0-7171-2066-X , pp. 56 .
  8. ^ A b c d e Benedict O'Sullivan: Medieval Irish Dominican Studies . Ed .: Hugh Fenning. Four Courts Press, Dublin 2009, ISBN 978-1-84682-151-6 , pp. 82-84, 86 .
  9. ↑ Sir James Ware: De Hibernia & antiquitatibus ejus disquisitiones . London 1654, Sligo, p. 228-230 .
  10. ↑ Thomas Burke: Hibernia dominicana . 1762, p. 326-328 .
  11. ↑ The letter discovered by Thomas Burke ( Archivo Apostolico, Lib. LXVII. Fol. 273 ) was transcribed by him: Thomas Burke: Hibernia dominicana . 1762, p. 75-76 .
  12. ↑ entry 1516.7 of the Annals of Connacht
  13. ↑ Quarter ( Irish ceathrú , "quarter") as area measure go back to the traditional division of area of ​​the townlands , whereby in Connacht a townland ( Irish baile ) was divided into four quarters. See p. 318 ff. In Thomas McErlean: The Irish Townland System of Landscape Organization . In: Terence Reeves-Smyth, Fred Hamond (Eds.): Landscape Archeology in Ireland . British Archaeological Reports, Oxford 1983, ISBN 0-86054-216-5 , pp. 315-339 .
  14. ^ Benedict O'Sullivan: Medieval Irish Dominican Studies . Ed .: Hugh Fenning. Four Courts Press, Dublin 2009, ISBN 978-1-84682-151-6 , pp. 167 .

Coordinates: 54 ° 3 ′ 36.7 "  N , 8 ° 35 ′ 27.1"  W.