Burrishoole Abbey, a 15th Century Dominican friary, is located on a tidal inlet (lagoon) on the north side of Clew Bay, Co Mayo. Burrishoole Friary was a Dominican friary in County Mayo, Ireland. Its ruin is a National Monument.
Burrishoole Friary was founded in 1470 by Richard de Burgo of Turlough, Lord MacWilliam Oughter. It was built without the permission of the Pope. In 1486, the Pope instructed the Archbishop of Tuam to forgive the Friars. Richard de Burgo resigned his lordship in 1469 and entered the friary he had founded where he remained a friar until his death four years later. This was not an uncommon occurrence and serves to illustrate the connection between patrons and their foundations at this time.
The church and the eastern wall of the cloister remain. The grounds of the Friary are an actively used cemetery. Burrishoole Friary is a few kilometers west of the town of Newport, County Mayo, Ireland. It is often called Burrishoole Abbey, however, this colloquial name is inaccurate as the Dominican order did not have abbots, therefore Dominican houses are not technically abbeys. Almost all the friaries and abbeys across Ireland were suppressed in the wake of the Reformation in the 16th century. Very few were rebuilt after that time and now only the ruins survive, pleasing, if poignant, late Gothic relics of what must have been among the most striking buildings in the countryside of pre-Tudor Ireland.
Aisling Jennings Photography 