Rathfran Monastery

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South view of the monastery

The monastery Rathfran ( English Rathfran Priory , Irish Prióreacht Ráth Bhrannaibh ) was in 1274 as the Holy Cross hallowed house of Dominicans founded in Town Country Rathfran at the tidal currents exposed mouth of Cloonaghmore River, a few kilometers north-west of Killala in the same diocese . The monastery was closed around 1577 as part of the Reformation . After interruptions, the Dominicans stayed in Rathfran until the end of the 18th century. The monastery is one of the national monuments of Ireland under number 269.

history

There are very different details about the founder. Sir James Ware writes that only the founding year 1274 is certain, and that there are some who would ascribe the founding of the Exeter (or Dexter) family. Hubert Thomas Knox sees Rathfran as a subsidiary of the Dominicans in Strade and therefore Stephen de Exeter as a possible founder. However, Sir Richard Dexter is also named as the founder. William Liath de Burgh, one of Richard de Burgh's grandsons, is also named as a possible founder . Benedict O'Sullivan is skeptical about this, however, as William Liath de Burgh was probably still too young at that time and the de Burghs did not have any properties in North Connacht at that time. Instead, he sees a possible connection to the Augustinian canons in Mullingar, who, despite the distance, looked after the parish in Rathfran. This was because the Petit family, who founded the house in Mullingar around 1227 and continued to promote, the barony of Tirawley, to which Rathfran belongs, belonged to their possessions following the conquest of Connacht. Hugh Fenning sees this assumption confirmed by a list of Irish Dominican monasteries compiled in Rome in 1647, which the Petit family named as founders and the O'Dowd family as sponsors.

In 1438 some of the monastery's buildings fell into disrepair and the monastery was still missing a refectory , a bell tower and a bell, so that indulgences were granted for those who visited the monastery and gave alms. 20 years later it was reported that wars and other events had caused the monastery to suffer considerably and to become impoverished. In 1513/1514 Edmund de Burgh, who had his seat in Castlebar and was ruler of northern Connacht, stayed in the monastery and was murdered there by the sons of his brother William.

The monastery owned two quarters of land. There is evidence that suggests that the residents of this property paid their tithes intended for their parish to the monastery, which looked after the parish. There is similar evidence for Athenry , Cloonameehan , Galway , Roscommon , Sligo , Tralee , Tulsk , and Urlaur . But it could also be that these were only levies from the harvest.

The monastery was not in good shape early after the Reformation. In a report by Provincial David Brown, which was submitted for the General Chapter in Rome in 1558, Rathfran is counted among those monasteries that are in a state of disrepair. Rathfran is also included in a list that was compiled for Seraphinus Cavalli, who was in office from 1571 to 1578. Rathfran is no longer mentioned in the reports for 1574 and 1576.

Sir Richard Bingham in a portrait made in 1564 by an unknown artist

Around 1577 the monastery was closed, the possessions recorded and the land ownership handed over to Thomas Dexter. At the end of the 16th century Connacht was at the center of a dispute between the "new English" who had just come to Ireland to enforce English rule, and the "old English", which included the branches of the de Burghs, the Connacht bis dominated there. One of the newcomers was Sir Richard Bingham, who made the office of Lord President of Connacht for a cash payment of £ 1,500 . Formally, he asserted the interests of England, but his real focus was on acquiring new land and income. He also came into conflict with the branch of the MacWilliams de Burgh, who ruled the north of Mayos and thus the region around Rathfran. As part of this dispute there was a campaign by Bingham in 1590, which led him to the north of Mayo, where he burned down the Rathfran, Moyne and Rosserk monasteries belonging to the diocese of Killala . The monastery complex in Rathfran has been in ruins since then.

In a list compiled by Dominic Burke, procurator of the Dominicans in Rome in 1637, of the still active Dominicans in Connacht, some activities are reported, but Rathfran is listed as orphaned. Nevertheless, a few Dominicans later managed to settle near the ruins of the monastery. Thomas Burke, historian of the Dominicans in the 18th century, visited Rathfran himself in 1756 and met five Dominicans who lived in a thatched cottage in the townland of Mullaghnacroishe, about 300 m from the old monastery. The last Dominican in Rathfran, Denis Meagher, died between 1785 and 1789.

architecture

Passage to the sacristy and two burial niches in the north side of the choir

The monastery in Rathfran was one of the comparatively large monastic complexes in Ireland. Because of the extensive outbuildings, Rathfran is one of the few monasteries that had two inner courtyards. Of these, however, only the foundation walls have survived, which were only rediscovered in 1929/1930 when the Board of Works carried out extensive work on the monastery ruins to protect them from further deterioration. Only the nave and the later added southern aisle are noteworthy preserved. The tracery of the Gothic east window included three elongated window areas, each of which was closed at the top with three passes . On the south side of the choir were five lancet windows that were later structurally changed. In the choir area, Sedilien and a piscina can be seen on the southern side , and opposite are two wall niches with graves, which are provided with multi-leaf edging. There is no tower or any other visible separation between the nave and the choir. Presumably the rood screen was only made of wood.

East window in the south aisle

The south aisle is of a later date and is only connected to the main nave with a simple passage. At the eastern end of the side aisle there is a late Gothic window with tracery, which consists of two elongated window areas that are closed at the top with two teardrop-shaped quatrains and at the top with a cross-shaped quatrefoil.

Web links

Commons : Rathfran Priory  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ^ A b c d e f g h i Aubrey Gwynn , R. Neville Hadcock: Medieval Religious Houses Ireland . Longman, London 1970, ISBN 0-582-11229-X , pp. 220, 228 .
  2. ↑ a b c John O'Heyne: Irish Dominicans of the Seventeenth Century . Reprinted with an English Translation, and an Appendix Containing Historical Sketches of all the Ancient Dominican Foundations in Ireland. Ed .: Ambrose Coleman. William Tempest, Dundalk 1902, pp. Appendix: 93–94 .
  3. ^ National Monuments in State Care: Mayo. Retrieved October 24, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Sir James Ware: De Hibernia & antiquitatibus ejus disquisitiones . London 1654, p. 223 .
  5. ^ Hubert Thomas Knox: The History of the County of Mayo . To the close of the sixteenth century. Hodes, Figgis & Co., Dublin 1908, p. 95 ( archive.org ).
  6. ↑ Lord Killanin, Michael V. Duignan: The Shell Guide to Ireland . 2nd Edition. Ebury Press, London 1967, pp. 330 .
  7. ↑ a b Thomas Burke: Hibernia dominicana . 1762, p. 279-281 .
  8. ^ Benedict O'Sullivan: Medieval Irish Dominican Studies . Ed .: Hugh Fenning. Four Courts Press, Dublin 2009, ISBN 978-1-84682-151-6 , pp. 54-55 .
  9. ^ Hugh Fenning: Founders of Irish Dominican Friaries . An Unpublished List of c. 1647. In: Collectanea Hibernica . No. 44/45 . Franciscan Province of Ireland, 2003, p. 56-62 .
  10. ↑ entry U1513.21 in the Annals of Ulster
  11. ↑ entry M1513.8 in the Annals of the Four Masters
  12. ^ Martin J. Blake: Notes on the Place Names Mentioned in Browne's Map of Mayo, 1584 (Continued) . In: Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society . Vol. 6, No. 3 . Galway Archaeological & Historical Society, 1910, p. 182-185 .
  13. ^ A b J. F. Quinn: History of Mayo . Ed .: Brendan Quinn. Volume 5. Ballina 2002, ISBN 0-9519280-5-8 , pp. 14 .
  14. ↑ Edmund de Burg from the MacWilliams branch was the 10th Lord of Lower Connacht. MacWilliam Burkes branch overview: TW Moody, FX Martin, FJ Byrne (Eds.): A New History of Ireland . tape IX , ISBN 978-0-19-959306-4 , pp. 171 .
  15. ↑ 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 .
  16. ↑ also called Clooneymeaghan
  17. ↑ also called Urlan
  18. ^ Thomas S. Flynn: The Irish Dominicans 1536-1641 . Four Courts Press, Dublin 1993, ISBN 1-85182-122-8 , pp. 82 .
  19. ^ Benedict O'Sullivan: Medieval Irish Dominican Studies . Ed .: Hugh Fenning. Four Courts Press, Dublin 2009, ISBN 978-1-84682-151-6 , pp. 166-167 .
  20. ^ Colmán Ó Clabaigh: The Friars in Ireland 1224-1540 . Four Courts Press, Dublin 2012, ISBN 978-1-84682-225-4 , pp. 136 .
  21. ^ A b Thomas S. Flynn: The Irish Dominicans 1536-1641 . Four Courts Press, Dublin 1993, ISBN 1-85182-122-8 , pp. 44, 68, 70-71 .
  22. ^ Colm Lennon: Sixteenth-Century Ireland . The Incomplete Conquest. Gill & Macmillan, Dublin 1994, ISBN 0-7171-1623-9 , pp. 254-255 .
  23. ^ Nicholas Canny: Making Ireland British 1580-1650 . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001, ISBN 0-19-820091-9 , pp. 77-98 .
  24. ^ William M. Hennessy (Ed.): The Annals of Loch Cé . A Chronicle of Irish Affairs From AD 1014 To AD 1590. Vol. II. Stationary Office, Dublin 1939, p. 508 ( archive.org ).
  25. ^ Proceedings . In: Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland . Fifth Series, Vol. 8, No. 3 . Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 1898, Rathfran and its Monastery, p. 293-295 .
  26. ↑ a b Harold G. Leask: Irish Churches and Monastic Buildings II . Gothic Architecture to AD 1400. Dundalgan Press, Dundalk 1960, pp. 117-118 .
  27. ^ Benedict O'Sullivan: Medieval Irish Dominican Studies . Ed .: Hugh Fenning. Four Courts Press, Dublin 2009, ISBN 978-1-84682-151-6 , pp. 110 .
  28. ^ Colmán Ó Clabaigh: The Friars in Ireland 1224-1540 . Four Courts Press, Dublin 2012, ISBN 978-1-84682-225-4 , pp. 136 .
  29. ↑ Harold G. Leask: Irish Churches and Monastic Buildings III . Medieval Gothic: The Last Phases. Dundalgan Press, Dundalk 1960, pp. 125-126 .

Coordinates: 54 ° 14 ′ 16.9 ″  N , 9 ° 14 ′ 39.6 ″  W.