Burrishoole Abbey has had a very colourful history

By Tom Gillespie

IN 1470 Sir Richard De Burgo (Burke) of Turlough, without prior papal permission, founded the magnificent Burrishoole Abbey, outside Newport, for the Dominicans. The term abbey, however, is a bit of a misnomer as the Dominicans were friars and did not have abbots, so the correct term should really be Burrishoole friary.

The friars remained under threat of excommunication until 1486 when the Pope relented and a forgiveness was granted. De Burgo himself spent his last years as a friar within its walls.

Sir Richard De Burgo, Lord Mac William Oughter - Chief of the Burkes of Turlough, was known in Gaelic as ‘Risteard an Cuarscidh’ - ‘Richard of the curved shield’.

Richard, in his elder years, allocated land and monies to the Order of St. Dominic for the construction of the abbey. Richard resigned his Lordship and took the habit under the Dominican Order. He resided there until his death four years later in 1473.

Initially the abbey was a timber construction. However, the Archbishop of Tuam, Donal Ó Murry, granted permission for the founding of the stoned walled abbey, now a national monument.

Since Pope Boniface VIII, some 100 years earlier, it was prohibited to accept the site of a religious house without prior permission of the pope, a directive which the founder and the archbishop were unaware of.

Nevertheless, in a papal bull dated February 9, 1486 - 435 years ago today - Pope Innocent VII declared the foundation as being ‘irregular’.

However, he gave permission for the erection of the abbey, which included dormitories, cloisters, cemetery, refectory, along with a church, its steeple and bell. He pardoned all those that commenced on the construction prior to his approval.

The next century saw the abbey flourish. Its peaceful community took on the role as pastors, physicians and hospitallers for the wider parish. Ireland at this time saw a big religious revival with the greatest progress being made in Connaught.

In 1563, at the young age of 14, Honoria De Burgo (Nora Burke), daughter of Richard an Ierain (Iron Dick), received the habit of the 3rd Order of St. Dominic in the Order of St. Catherine of Sienna from Fr. Thaddeus Ó Duanne.

Despite her father, who was the second husband of Grace O’Malley - Granuaile - himself having great wealth and four castles in the area, she built a small convent close to the abbey in which she lived with her fellow sisters.

On one occasion in 1652 the abbey was attacked and plundered by English soldiers. They brutally treated two nuns, Honoria Bourke and Sr. Honoria Magaen. The two nuns, who were both over 100 years old, fled to Oilean na Naoimh (Saint’s island) in nearby Lough Furnace. They were later captured, stripped naked (it was mid February) and had their ribs broken and were left to die.

However, she made it back to her beloved convent on the back of a maid before dying.

Sister Magaen, who managed to flee her captors, upon reaching the lake shore, headed for the trees in an attempt to conceal herself. She sought refuge in the hollow of a tree, but was found dead the following day. The sisters were buried together.

This, thankfully, was the last of the fighting that took place at the abbey.

The 17th century saw many friars leave the country. Some were ordered, some were forced. Those that remained lived in simple thatched cottages in close proximity to the abbey, which was diminishing as the years passed.

In 1793 the roof collapsed at the abbey.

The abbey at Burrishoole was always considered to be a hallowed burial place among the local clans.

The oldest inscribed tomb in the abbey is the O’Kelly altar tomb with a Latin inscription dated 1623. Peregrine O’Cleirigh, one of the Four Masters, is also buried in the abbey. He said in his will, dated February 1664: I bequeath my soul to God and I charge my body to be buried in the monastery of Burgheis Umhaill.

The remains of Fr. Manus Sweeney are buried within the walls of the abbey. Sweeney, a local patriotic priest, was hanged by British forces on the market crane in Newport in 1799 for the part he played in the French-backed rebellion of 1798.

The abbey fell into ruin in the 18th century, and the roof finally collapsed in 1793.

Today, the nave, chancel, tower and south transept remain, and there are ruins of domestic buildings and a cloister to the north. The cemetery is still in use.

The Dominican friars that remained were detested by the rule at that time. They wore plain clothes and showed little regard for the unjust laws of the time. One such law forbid the opening of schools. This was a law which the friars defied by opening a school in the nearby woods in 1642 and it remained open until 1967.

Records from 1756 show that the community at the abbey consisted of five friars of the Dominican Order - Fr. Francis Mac Donnell (prior), Fr. Anthony Mac Donnell (sub prior), Fr. Dominic Barret, Fr. Dominic Healy and the youngest, Fr. Francis Bourke. Fr. John Mac Donnell was the last prior 1798-1800.

However, local accounts speak of a Friar Horan who lived in the vicinity of the abbey during the early parts of the 19th century. We know that the last friar to take the habit for Burrishoole was a native of Galway by the name of John Hughes in the year 1862 at Esker, Co. Monaghan.

The abbey is located just outside Newport where the Western Greenway crosses the road to the seven arches bridge which was built around 1892, over the Black Oak River. It carried the Achill branch of the Midland Great Western Railway line on which the greenway is now located. The last train ran on this line in the autumn of 1937.