Rathfran Abbey in ruins — Rathfran

In pasture, located on lowlying ground on the N bank of the Palmerstown River, at a point where the river becomes tidal and opens into Rathfran Bay, an estuarine inlet on the W side of the broad Killala Bay. This location, to our eyes tranquil and scenic, overlooking the river and sheltered by gently rising ground at W, N and E, would have provided the monastery with strategic access to transport, trade and fishing in the bay and along the course of the river. This is a National Monument in state ownership (no. 269). Named ‘Rathfran Abbey’ on the 1838 and 1922 OS 6-inch maps, it is more accurately defined as a friary, founded in 1274 for the order of Friars Preachers or Dominicans, and dedicated to the Holy Cross. There is some uncertainty about the founder: it may have a member the d’Exeter/Mac Jordans family, perhaps Sir Richard D’Exeter, or it may have been Sir William de Burgh, sometime Lord Justice of Ireland, whose wife was a d’Exeter. Events in the turbulent history of the friary during the 15th and 16th centuries are catalogued by Gwynne and Hadcock (1970, 228): Letters in the Calendar of Papal Register record that in 1438 an indulgence was granted to those giving alms and donations towards refurbishmentthe of the friary as it was without a refectory, bell tower and bell, and other buildings were becoming ruinous; in 1458 it was once again reported as being impoverished and reduced by wars and other disasters; in 1513 the Annals of Ulster record that Edmond Mac William de Burgo was killed in the friary by his nephews, the sons of his brother Walter; in 1577 following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, a lease of the site ‘of the late dissolved house of Fryers Preachers of Rathbranne, by the sea’’ was made to Thomas Exeter, at which time the friary had one small house adjoining and a ruinous mill; in 1590 the Annals of Loch Cé record that the abbey was burned by Sir Richard Bingham, Governor of Connacht, and in 1596 the property was granted to Wm. Taaffe. It is known that, despite the loss of their monastery, Dominican friars maintained a presence in the neighbourhood up to the end of the 18th century: In 1731 two friars were living at Templemurray and Ballysakeery, and in 1756 five were living in a cottage in Mullaghnacroiste. The remains of the friary stand stark and roofless. They consist of a rectangular nave and chancel church, with a side chapel on the S side of the nave, a two-storey domestic building attached to the NE end of the chancel, and immediately to N of the church, a cloister surrounded by remnants of a domestic range, and immediately to N of that, a second courtyard enclosed by a further range of buildings. Two main building phases are evident: the primary construction of the church and cloister in the 13th century, followed in the late 14th/15th century, and later, by episodes of rebuilding and expansion, including remodelling of the chancel windows, changes to the nave, and the additions of the side chapel at S, the two-storey residence to NE, and a series of external buttresses. The church (int. 33.5m E–W; 7.2m N–S) is constructed of mortared limestone rubble, and the walls stand to almost their full original height. The main entrance is through a doorway in the W gable, which does not retain its original stonework. The interior appears now as a long, undifferentiated space, but originally a rood screen would have separated the chancel at E, where the altar stood, from the nave at W. The chancel is dominated by a large window spanning much of the width of the E gable; the window was originally a three-light structure, but has collapsed, and all that survives are the banded angle shafts on the interior splay of the embrasure. Also lighting the chancel is a row of five tall, two-light windows, with plain pointed heads, in the S wall. Three of these windows were modified in the later medieval period: two were partly blocked up to create smaller windows, one with round-arched heads, and the westernmost in the row was reduced to a single light when it was slighted by the construction of the E wall of the S chapel. The easternmost window was from the beginning shorter than the other four, allowing space beneath for a pair of recesses for a piscina (water basin with drainage hole) and sidilia (seats for clergy). The piscina recess has a finely moulded trefoil head, and contains two shelves and twin basins. The larger, sedilia recess, immediately to W, has a semicircular moulded arch. A finely matched pair of trefoil-headed recesses, directly opposite, in the N chancel wall, may have been tomb recesses. A projecting, moulded horizontal band or string course, which respects the piscina and sidilia recesses, extends W along the S wall beneath the row of windows, terminating just beyond the fifth window in an oval carved-stone human head, positioned on its side. This decorative terminal, which is now greatly eroded, may mark the original dividing line between the chancel and nave. Three tall, single-light lancet windows in the S wall originally lit the nave, but all were blocked up when the S chapel was attached to the nave. There is a small, trefoil-headed piscina recess in the S wall of the nave, with a shelf and twin basins. To W of this is a doorway leading from the nave into the side chapel. It has a hanging eye on the W side of its embrasure, which would have held a wooden door. A second doorway opens from the nave into the chapel at the W end of the S wall. The side chapel (16.6m E–W; 3.7m N–S) was probably constructed in the late 14th- or early 15th-century. It extends roughly half way along the S wall of the church, with its W wall flush with, but not keyed into, the W gable of the church. It was accessed from outside through a doorway (now blocked up) at the W end of its S wall. The highlight of the chapel is its elegant E window, a twin-light pointed-arched lancet, with finely executed quatrefoil tracery, and external hood moulding. In the main church, above the doorway in the W gable, there is a twin-light window with round-arched heads, and hollow spandrels beneath a square-headed hood moulding on the exterior face. This is a late insertion, replacing an earlier window. Directly above the window, in the external wall face, there is a small stone crucifixion plaque, carved in false relief, with a projecting stone hood above it. Two doorways (the westernmost now blocked up) in the N wall of the nave open directly onto the cloister ambulatory or walkway, which was originally roofed; the support stones for the roof still project from the external wall of the church. The cloister arcade does not survive, and the square cloister and its enclosing domestic range are now reduced to low walls/foundations. The domestic range is visible in outline as a series of contiguous, interconnected rectangular rooms that border the cloister at W, N and E: these would originally have been two-story buildings, housing the refectory, kitchens, dormitory, store rooms, etc. One chamber at the SE corner of the range retains a partly intact vaulted roof. Unusually, there is a second square courtyard immediately to N, enclosed on the W, N and E by another suite of rectangular buildings/rooms, all now reduced to wall footings. The domestic range was also accessible from the chancel, through a pointed arched doorway, which opens into a narrow corridor or lobby. Immediately to W, are remnants of stairs which led to the upper storey of the cloistral range. To the E, another doorway opens into the ground floor of a narrow, two-story residential building, which projects to N from the chancel, with its E wall flush with the E gable of the chancel. It was probably added to the chancel in the late 14th- or early 15th-century, probably subsuming a pre-existing sacristy at ground floor level. An E–W cross wall divides the ground level into two rooms. The upper storey, possibly the prior’s quarters, is furnished with a large fireplace in the centre of t