Kilcrea Franciscan Friary

Kilcrea Friary was founded in 1465 by the sixth Lord of Muskerry, Cormac Láidir MacCárthaig, for the Observant Franciscans. It was founded on the site of an earlier Christian site which was founded by the Abbess St Créidh, who is believed to be interred in the choir. After Cormac was murdered in 1495 by his brother Eoghan and his nephews, Cormac was buried in the friary’s chancel, commemorated by a modern plaque.

After the dissolution of the monasteries, Kilcrea Friary continued to serve as a friary, even after it was sacked and pillaged in 1584 and 1590. It was rebuilt, with Fr. John Gould recorded as its Superior in 1621. By the mid-19^th century the friars had left Kilcrea. Most of the friary now consists of burials with some of the earliest cross-slabs dating to 1625 and 1626.

The friary is square in plan with a nave and chancel, and crossing tower, typical of Irish mendicant friaries. The nave and south transept both have arcades. On the north side of the church is the cloister, refectory, and dormitory. The latter addition of the sacristy, next to the chancel, allowed for an upper floor known as the scriptorium. It was in this scriptorium that the 15^th century manuscript known as the Rennes Manuscript was written. The Rennes Manuscript contains 125 folios with a variety of material, including religious texts, and is seen as an important example of early Irish literature focusing on Dindsenchas (lore of places).

Perhaps most famously the tomb of Art Ó Laoghaire is found in the nave. Ó Laoghaire, an Irish Catholic captain in the Hungarian Hussar Regiment, was killed at the age of 27 in 1773. Art was proclaimed an outlaw by magistrates for not selling his horse to the Protestant magistrate Abraham Morris for £5. The Penal Laws stipulated that no Catholic could refuse to sell their horse to a Protestant. Art, being now an outlaw, could legally be shot on site, with the fatal shot coming on May 4^th 1773. Art’s wife, Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, aunt of Daniel O’Connell, wrote the famous poem Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire and the epitaph on Ó Laoghaire’s tomb.

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This national monument is protected in accordance with the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014