Burriscarra Abbey

Carnacon, Ireland

Burriscarra Abbey is a former Carmelite Priory in County Mayo, founded in c. 1298. The abbey was abandoned before 1383 and in 1413 it was transferred by Pope Gregory XII to the Order of Saint Augustine who already had a friary in Ballinrobe. It was burned in 1430 but repaired soon after. It was usurped by the Cromwellians and in 1607 James I granted the land to John King, who sold it to Oliver Bowen in 1608. Later Charles II granted it to John King and then Sir Henry Lynch whose family kept it until the 19th century. It now belongs to the Office of Public Works who restored it in the 1960s. The current remains are largely of the 15th century.

The lower church has some 13th century niches but much of it was rebuilt in the 15th century when the present windows were inserted. The rectangular church has a south aisle with a two-arch arcade. It has a traceried east window and a piscina. The cloister lies to the north of the church but there are no remains of an arcade.

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Carnacon, Ireland
See all sites in Carnacon

Details

Founded: c. 1298
Category: Religious sites in Ireland

More Information

en.wikipedia.org

Rating

4.7/5 (based on Google user reviews)

User Reviews

Daithí Kilcourse (8 months ago)
We went here after a Moore Hall visit. A nice walk to the abbey. Nice abbey that you can walk through a lot of.
Chick (3 years ago)
You have to love medieval times to appreciate and enjoy this area and surrounding headstones.
tommy aquinas (6 years ago)
A lovely place to visit. I stumbled across this place by chance and had never heard of it beforehand. Well worth going to if you're in the Ballintubber or Carnacon area. The locality is steeped in history.
Colin Clarke (6 years ago)
Beautiful place to visit. Dates from the mid 13th century.
Fergal Jennings (7 years ago)
The Abbey at Borriscarra (sometimes spelt Burriscarra) was founded in 1298 for the Carmelite Friars. The foundation is linked to the Staunton family of nearby Carra Castle. The Stauntons were dispossessed and their castle, along with the abbey, was granted to Sir Henry Lynch during the reign of Charles II. The Carmelite friars had eight communities west of the Shannon at the time of the Reformation. These were; Loughrea (Galway), Ballinasmale (Mayo), Caltra-na-pallice (Killosolan, Galway) Ballinahinch (Galway) 1356, Knockmore (Sligo), Ahascragh (Roscommon) 1437, Bealaneny (Ballinasloe, Galway) and Borriscarra. Of these, only Loughrea has a community today. The friars left Borriscarra in the late fourteenth century and the care of the church was passed to the Augustinian canons from neighbouring Ballintubber Abbey. Ballintubber was, according to James Ware, a community of Augustinian Canons but he denotes the new occupants of Borriscarra as Augustinian Friars and makes no mention of its Carmelite past. There is quite an amount of confusion about what friars lived in many of the ruined abbeys of the west. The Carmelites and Domincans have competing claims to Ballingaul in Limerick, Castlelyons in Cork and Knockmore in Sligo. The Augustinian community is acknowledged by the Augustinian Friars as one of theirs so it is unlikely that the house was re-populated from Ballintubber. The friars of Ballinrobe, Dunmore and Ballyhaunis would have been more likely the new residents when the Carmelites left.
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