Dunmore Augustinian Friary

Dunmore Abbey church is all that remains of this former Augustinian friary, attributed to Walter de Bermingham, lord of Athenry in 1425. Although dissolved by Queen Elizabeth I in 1569, the grantee of the land was John Fitz-Thomas Burke who supported the friars, allowing them to remain at Dunmore. During Cromwell’s invasion, a prior and thirty friars left Dunmore, which was raided, sacked and plundered by Cromwell’s forces.

Dunmore Abbey, with is late Gothic architecture, is a nave and chancel church, rectangular in plan. The 16^th century addition of a three-storey tower marks the division between the nave and chancel. The main doorway, dated to the 15^th century is decorated with three shallow orders, fluted chamfers, moulded capitals, and side pinnacles with poppy-heads. Above the doorway is a memorial table translated as ‘Pray for the soul of Walter de Bermingham who had me made’. In the nave, a quoin stone has been re-used in the eastern window and is carved in the form of a female head with an elaborate head-dress. Under the tower’s pointed chancel arch, some of the original plaster and wickering survives, along with a carved head. The chancel was used from the 18^th century as the parish church for the Church of Ireland, up to 1879. In the chancel there is a grave slab with a Latin inscription, dated 1691.

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