Nenagh Convent and Hospital

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Exterior view of the choir

The monastery and hospital Nenagh ( English Nenagh Priory and Hospital, Priory and Hospital of St. John the Baptist ) was built by Theobald Butler around 1200 as a priory of the Crosses consecrated to John the Baptist in the diocese of Killaloe at the gates of Nenagh in the townland of Tyone ( Irish Tigh Eoin , "John's House"). The house was secularized around 1541 in the course of the Reformation and finally closed in 1551. The property fell to Oliver Grace and remained with his family until the reconquest of Cromwell . In the 19th century a hospital was built nearby under the Poor Law , which was replaced in 1938 by the new building of the regional hospital.

history

The first house of the Knights of the Cross in Ireland was built in Dublin before the papal confirmation by Clement III in 1188 . The foundation was initiated by Ailred, who as a pilgrim in Acre got to know the Italian Cross Lords. It is unclear whether a formal connection to the Italian crusaders already existed at that time or in what form it later existed, but R. Neville Hadcock believes it is likely that this was done before 1216. The order then quickly spread throughout Ireland in the areas dominated by the English invasion . After Dublin, Dundalk , New Ross , Athy , Kells and Kilkenny probably followed before Theobald Butler founded the monastery and hospital near Nenagh around 1200, which he had conquered immediately before from the Uí Chennétigs (Anglicised: O'Kennedys).

Wax impression of the hospital's seal from the 13th century with the inscription ✚ S HOS PITALIS IER NE NAGH , where “IER” stands for Jerusalem and indicates the connection to the Order of the Cross.

The text of the undated founding charter is only available as a copy as part of a declaration of commitment from the Convention. First, the donated lands are listed, including a total of six Carucatae and 40 acres in Kilkeary, one and a half Carucatae near Kilkeary and four Carucatae and 40 acres in other locations. Then it is stated that this should be enough to care for thirteen frail guests. The Lords of the Cross were granted the right to choose their prior themselves. They were allowed to fish and build mills in the lands they owned.

Kilkeary was initially founded in the 7th century by Ciar, who was one of the three holy virgins of the Múscraighe, a ruling family who also settled in the Nenagh region. In Kilkeary are the ruins of a church, the origins of which are said to go back to Ciar's nunnery. In some houses of the Irish Cross Lords there are also monastic communities with sisters. Gleeson thinks it is conceivable that existing structures in Kilkeary were used for nuns. However, there is no evidence of this.

Other foundations have come down to us for the period around 1220 and April 26, 1331. The foundation of 1220 only includes lands that are not in the region. In the agreement of 1331, the monastery returned ownership of the townland of Ballygasheen, which James Butler, Earl of Ormond, needed for an exchange with Stephen de Marisco. Until that time, the rule of the Butler family was unchallenged. The Uí Chennétigs, ousted by the rule, cooperated with the butlers and themselves founded a Franciscan house in the immediate vicinity.

Although the invasion by Edward Bruce was repelled at the beginning of the 14th century and the Irish uprisings initially subsided, the previous prosperity was no longer achieved. The trust between the English King Edward III. and the leading rulers of Ireland, including James Butler, were so disturbed that the termination of any fiefdom in Ireland since 1307 was seriously considered. The conflicts between the English lords in Ireland and the resistance against the crown gave space for new Irish uprisings, in which the Uí Chennétigs also took part. The Annals of the Franciscans in Nenagh tell of a raid on the hospital led by Domhnall Uí Chennétig in 1342, in which five Cross Lords were killed and the buildings burned down. At Christmas 1347, Domhnall Uí Chennétig attacked and devastated the city of Nenagh. Reconstruction was out of the question at first. James Butler died immediately thereafter in 1348, leaving his seven-year-old son as heir. The legacy investigation report found that rent payments in the Nenagh region had long since ceased because the land was devastated and war raged. By this time the Uí Chennétigs had regained their old territory and the English had withdrawn southwards to Thurles . Nothing changed when Domhnall Uí Chennétig was captured on March 28, 1348 and executed on June 2 in Thurles. At the end of the same year the black death reached Nenagh and claimed more victims. A petition submitted to Pope Urban V in 1365 shows that at that time there were only two Cross Lords in the Nenagh hospital.

Remains of a north window in the nave that can be dated to the end of the 15th or beginning of the 16th century, in which the keel-arched end of a lancet window can still be seen , which opens far inwards and whose soffit is closed in a semicircle at the top; a window shape that was widely used in Ireland in the 15th century.

Despite the difficult time and the absence of the butlers, the house continued to exist. There was a dispute regarding the admission of Irish into the monastery, as the statutes of the monastery did not allow this. Only a decision (by John XXIII, who was later seen as an antipope) . enforced that in 1414 the Irish Dominican Dermit O'Haugh was allowed to change to the Order of the Cross and take over the office as prior. After the Irish took over the monastery, a very poor reconstruction of the ruins took place in the 15th century. The remains of the complex that can still be seen today go back to this time. However, there were some grievances that led to further papal interventions. In 1441 the Prior Cornelius Macgillapoil was accused of simony and living with a concubine by the Augustinian canon of Aghmacart Monastery, Maurice O'Kennedy . Pope Eugene IV instructed the Bishop of Killaloe to hear the indictment and make a decision. A later complaint stated that Maurice O'Kennedy had seized the monastery after an alleged election as prior. Eugene IV healed this retrospectively in 1443 and confirmed him as prior. Further papal interventions with the consequence that a prior had to be replaced took place in 1474 and 1479.

At the beginning of the 16th century the balance of power changed again and the castle in Nenagh moved from the O'Kennedys back to the Butler family, represented by Piers Ruadh Butler, the later Earl of Ossory. As part of the Reformation, the monastery was closed in 1541 or 1542. The last prior, Thady O'Meara, who held this position at the time of the change of power, kept oversight of the former estates, which included the church, a bell tower, a water mill and over 600 acres of land and 14 rectories. In 1563 the property fell to Oliver Grace. In the family that remained Catholic, property remained almost unchanged for several generations until they lost everything when Oliver Cromwell recaptured Ireland in the middle of the 17th century. The monastery grounds then came into the possession of Daniel Abbott, a colonel in Cromwell's army. It passed through other hands and in the 19th century a poor house was built on the former land of the monastery, followed by a County Tipperary hospital in 1938 .

literature

  • William Hugh Patterson: On an Ancient Seal of the Hospital of St. John at Nenagh . In: The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Sixth Series . Vol. 2, No. 1 , 1912, p. 46-47 .
  • Edmund Curtis (Ed.): Ormond Deeds 1172-1350 AD Stationery Office, Dublin 1932 ( irishmanuscripts.ie ).
  • Dermot F. Gleeson, HG Leask: The Priory of St. John at Nenagh . In: The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Seventh Series . Vol. 8, No. 2 , 1938, p. 201-218 .
  • R. Neville Hadcock: The Order of the Holy Cross in Ireland . Presented to Aubrey Gwynn, SJ In: JA Watt, JB Morrall, FX Martin (Eds.): Medieval Studies . Dublin 1961, p. 44-53 .
  • Aubrey Gwynn , R. Neville Hadcock: Medieval Religious Houses Ireland . Longman, London 1970, ISBN 0-582-11229-X , pp. 214-215 .
  • Jean Farrelly, Caimin O'Brien: Archaeological Inventory of County Tipperary: Vol. I - North Tipperary . Stationery Office, Dublin 2002, ISBN 0-7557-1264-1 , pp. 270-271 .

Web links

Commons : Priory and Hospital of St. John the Baptist, Nenagh  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Gwynn, pp. 270-271.
  2. ^ Gleeson, p. 213.
  3. ^ Gleeson, p. 216.
  4. ↑ a b Hadcock, p. 50.
  5. ↑ p. 169 in David Kelly: The Augustinians in Dublin . In: Dublin Historical Record . Vol. 58, No. 2 , 2005, p. 166-175 .
  6. ↑ Gwynn, pp. 210, 214.
  7. ↑ James Ware: De Hibernia . London 1654, p. 209 .
  8. ↑ Paul MacCotter: Medieval Ireland . Territorial, Political and Economic Divisions. Four Courts Press, Dublin 2008, ISBN 978-1-84682-098-4 , pp. 211 .
  9. ↑ Lord Killanin, Michael V. Duignan: The Shell Guide to Ireland . 2nd Edition. Ebury Press, London 1967, pp. 386 .
  10. ^ AJ Otway-Ruthven: A History of Medieval Ireland . Barnes & Noble, 1993, ISBN 1-56619-216-1 , pp. 73-74 .
  11. ↑ Patterson.
  12. ↑ In the text is Karemach; Gleeson, p. 203, assumes that it is today's Kilkeary ( Irish Cill Chéire ).
  13. ^ Abbreviated English translation: Curtis, p. 10.
  14. ↑ Detailed analysis: Gleeson, pp. 202–205.
  15. ^ Pádraig Ó Riain: A Dictionary of Irish Saints . Four Courts Press, Dublin 2011, ISBN 978-1-84682-318-3 , pp. 167 .
  16. ↑ a b Gwynn, p. 391.
  17. ↑ Farrelly et al., P. 250, entry 1864.
  18. ^ Gleeson, p. 203.
  19. ^ Hadcock, p. 52.
  20. ^ Gleeson, p. 204.
  21. ^ Curtis, pp. 23-24, entry 48.
  22. ^ Curtis, p. 267, entry 629.
  23. ^ Gleeson, p. 205.
  24. ^ Robin Frame: Colonial Ireland 1169-1369 . 2nd Edition. Four Courts Press, Dublin 2012, ISBN 978-1-84682-322-0 , pp. 138 .
  25. ^ P. 159 in: Dermot F. Gleeson: The Annals of Nenagh . In: Analecta Hibernica . No. 12 , 1943, pp. 155, 157-164 .
  26. ↑ a b Gleeson, p. 206.
  27. ↑ a b Bernadette Williams (Ed.): The Annals of Ireland by Friar John Clyn . Four Courts Press, Dublin 2007, ISBN 978-1-84682-034-2 , pp. 244 .
  28. ↑ Edward III. In: HC Maxwell Lyte (Ed.): Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem and other analogous documents preserved in the Public Record Office . Vol. VIII. Stationary Office, London 1913, pp. 117-127 ( archive.org ).
  29. ^ Edmund Curtis: A History of Mediaeval Ireland . Maunsel & Roberts, Dublin 1923, p. 266-267 .
  30. ^ WH Bliss (Ed.): Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland . Petitions to the Pope. Vol. I AD 1342-1419. Stationary Office, London 1896, pp. 511 ( archive.org ).
  31. ^ Gleeson, p. 207.
  32. ↑ Harold G. Leask: Irish Churches and Monastic Buildings . III Medieval Gothic. Dundalgan Press, Dundalk 1960, pp. 114 .
  33. ^ Farrelly, p. 270.
  34. ↑ Jessie Alfred Tremlow (Ed.): Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland . Petitions to the Pope. Vol. VI AD 1404-1415. Stationary Office, Dublin 1904, p. 470 ( british-history.ac.uk ).
  35. ^ Gleeson, p. 208.
  36. ↑ Jessie Alfred Tremlow (Ed.): Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland . Petitions to the Pope. Vol. IX AD 1431-1447. Stationary Office, London 1912, p. 216 ( british-history.ac.uk ).
  37. ↑ Jessie Alfred Tremlow (Ed.): Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland . Petitions to the Pope. Vol. IX AD 1431-1447. Stationary Office, London 1912, p. 351 ( british-history.ac.uk ).
  38. ↑ Edmund Curtis (Ed.): Ormond Deeds 1509–1547 AD Stationery Office, Dublin 1937, p. 161-162 ( irishmanuscripts.ie ).
  39. ^ Gleeson, p. 209.
  40. ↑ Gleeson, pp. 214-216.

Coordinates: 52 ° 51 '17.9 "  N , 8 ° 11' 3.8"  W.