Abbey (in Ruins) — Buttevant

In Buttevant town (CO017-053001-), on the W bank of the Awbeg River. Remains of a Franciscan friary founded c. 1251 by David de Barry (Gwynn and Hadcock 1988, 243), Lord of Buttevant. David I’s son, David de Barry II (d. 1278) was buried in the chancel of the church. The remains consist in the ruin of a single-aisled church (int. 46m E-W; 7.5m N-S), divided by a collapsed belfry tower into a nave (int. 22.6m E-W; 7.50m N-S) and chancel (int. 17.5m E-W; 7.50m N-S); a transept (int. 11.7m N-S; 7.8m E-W) extends to the S from the E end of the nave, with a side chapel to the E (int. 4.4m E-W; 3.3m N-S). Of the claustral buildings remains only a small square room (c. 3.75m N-S; c. 4m E-W) abutting the E end of the church to the N, interpreted as the sacristy. A crypt on two levels under the E end of the chancel has been interpreted by O'Keeffe (2012) as a possible early castle or hall (see plans: Brash 1852a, opp. 88; Cochrane 1912, 67; Monastic Ireland: http://monastic.ie/tour/buttevant-franciscan-friary/; suggested reconstruction of the entire friary plan in Cotter 2013, 12). It later became an important burial place for the Barrys, and Buttevant remained the principal residence of the senior branch of the family throughout the Middle Ages. By the 16th century the conventual buildings were in ruins, but repaired in 1604 and subsequently re-inhabited by friars (Gwynn and Hadcock, ibid.). It was a ruin again by 1750, though some of the conventual buildings still stood at that time (Smith 1750, vol. 1, 313). The interior of the church has long been used for burial and is densely packed with 18th, 19th and 20th century burials. The remains were 'repaired' in 1851, after the tower had collapsed: breaches in the N walls were built up, fallen debris removed, and fragments of tombs and cut stone were ‘built into portions of the new work’ (Brash ibid., 95-6). Further conservation work was carried out by the OPW in recent years. The friary was located within the walls of the medieval borough, in a central location, which is unusual for a mendicant friary. Buttevant is a planned borough, and the friary may pre-date the planning and may have been incorporated as part of the expansion of the town (Cotter ibid., 3-7). Research has shown that mendicant friaries became an integral part of the planning of Anglo-Norman boroughs, though most friaries were established in a more peripheral position, close to a gate for example (Lafaye 2015, 90-102). Three main phases of construction can be discerned: Phase 1: construction of the nave and chancel; O’Keeffe argues that this happened in two stages – he identified in the S elevation of the church a series of wide arches predating the lancets, that would have contained different windows, and he also suggests the church was originally longer; this would correspond to the first years after the 1251 foundation; later, possibly in the 1260s, the lancet windows were inserted along the S wall of the nave and chancel, and the church shortened (O’Keeffe 2013, 85-7). Phase 2: construction of the S transept, its projecting E chapel and the tower in the late 13th century, possibly in the 1270s or early 1280s (ibid., 87), making them some of the earliest known examples of each structure in a mendicant context. Phase 3: extensive repairs, including the insertion of door surrounds and windows with tracery into earlier embrasures, encasing of the transept, and, based on the fragments embedded in the N wall of the church, a new cloister arcade, in the 15th/early 16th century. The nave is entered through a doorway in the W wall; the door has a pointed arch and jambs in two orders, and hood moulding (see plan and elevation Cochrane ibid., 73); this is inserted into an earlier, wider and higher doorway. The nave also has a blocked doorway at the W end of the S wall, and another blocked doorway near the E end of the same wall connecting into the transept. To the E of the latter is a piscina with a pointed arch, associated with an altar-tomb which would have been inserted in the W wall of the tower at the E end of the nave. An eighteenth-century drawing of the friary completed before the tower collapsed shows that a similar altar-tomb also stood on the other side of the tower central archway (Smith 1750, vol. 1, 313). The nave is lit by six windows: two tall windows high on the W gable, each with inserted twin cusped ogee-headed lights; two similar windows in the S wall (without inserted lights) which have been blocked; and two in the N wall, one inserted at clerestory level with double pointed-arch lights under a quatrefoil, the other much ruined. The nave contains two 13th century tomb recesses, near the centre of N and S walls; both have a rounded cinquefoil moulded arch and jambs with sculpted capitals and bases (see drawings: Brash ibid., 90-1; Cochrane ibid., 74); the N tomb has an inserted covering slab with a Latin inscription and date of 1625 (Brash ibid., 90). A third recess, at the E end of the N wall, has an arch rebuilt using various moulded fragments. To the E of the latter is a low section of rebuilt wall (L c. 8m) faced with cutstone fragments including parts of cloister arcading and medieval graveslabs (see drawings: Brash ibid., opp. 94). Only a stump of the S side of the tower now stands, projecting c. 2m from the S wall of the church. The tower collapsed in 1819 or 1814 (Brash ibid., 89; Cochrane ibid., 68); The 18-century drawing (Smith ibid., 313) shows the W elevation of the intact tower, with a high, slightly pointed arch framed by banded shafts, linking nave and choir; the altar-tomb recesses with low pointed arches on either side of the tower arch; and a rectangular tower with banded angle-shafts regarded as 'unique in Irish towers and perhaps an indication of thirteenth-century date' (Leask ibid., 110-11); a sketch in Brash (ibid., opp. 85) shows a similar profile on the E side. The base of a banded shaft remains at the NW corner of the surviving portion of the tower. A narrow flight of steps on the W side leads up to the 1st-floor level, where a lancet window in the S wall survives. The latter and the ground-floor window directly below are inserted into a tall window embrasure which was partially blocked by the insertion of the tower. A wide pointed archway (Wth 3.65m), towards the E end of the S wall of the nave, leads into the S transept, called ‘St Mary’s Chapel’ by Smith in 1750 (Smith ibid.). The word ‘transept’, though convenient, is in fact not the most accurate to describe these structures, which were chapels with devotional and funerary functions where burials and private masses took place at secondary altars (Lafaye 2016, 138). Above the arch, on the S face, is blank arcading. Both the SW and SE corners of the transept have 'casing' (ibid., 71) with base batter, effectively an additional projecting facing of rubble masonry, edged with quoins, built against the outside face, which Cochrane (ibid.) considered 'necessary owing to a defect in the original foundations'. Originally the S gable had three close-set lancet windows; the 'casing' has blocked both side windows, and the central one has an inserted twin ogee-headed light. The 'casing' also blocks the window near the S end of both the E and the W walls. There are two further windows in the S wall whose embrasures are framed inside by banded shafts with foliated capitals, supporting a pointed rear arch (see drawings Brash ibid., opp. 91); the lights are damaged, but appear to have had double cusped, pointed arches. Part of the blocking of the windows in S gable is by a plaque with FitzGerald of Desmond coat-of-arms (FitzGerald ibid., 443), and a carved architectural fragment underneath. A pointed archway in the E wall of the transept opens into a side chapel which is lit by a window in the E gable, into which a round-arched tomb recess has been inserted. It has a similar 13th-century cinquefoil moulded arch as the two tomb recesses in the nave, and