Irish History

West Cork Rocks 2

Every now and then I republish one of Robert’s classic pieces. This one is from five years ago. We were both fascinated by the West Cork landscape and, being Robert, he wanted to get under the skin of it all. So what follows is his exploration of what makes West Cork, well, West Cork.

West Cork Rocks, by Robert, from 2021

It certainly does! But this post is – literally – about rock: the hard, knobbly kind that is underneath us, surrounds us, and which has historically built our environment. In the picture above, taken on a clear February day during the most severe Covid lockdown, Finola is walking through beautiful West Cork. Beyond her is the great, gaunt outcrop of Mount Gabriel. Beside her is a traditional stone wall: its design unchanged over centuries. In the landscape all around her are rocks – large and small – scattered in the rough pasture.

In the distance, of course, is the coast: there are very few places in West Cork where you cannot, at least, catch a glimpse of the sea – and so many where you can immerse yourself in it, or stand on its shore and admire the infinite textures which those same rocks display. It’s mostly Old Red Sandstone: that’s the correct geological term. It was laid down in the Devonian period – a while ago now: between 400 and 300 million years, in fact. This followed an era during which our mountains were built, known as the Silurian times. Continents were shifting and separating, and what was to become Ireland was a great arid desert – deserted: there was no-one around to see it!

Old Red Sandstone: in fact it varies in colour depending on its local history. Broadly, some of the mountain rocks are purple-grey, while those closer to the sea could be greeny-red, but that is probably far too wide a generalisation. The sheer beauty is in the infinite shapes and colours. What artist needs any finer palette?

In those deserted times, an ‘Old Red Sandstone Continent’ extended over what is now northwest Europe, but it is worth noting that in ‘our’ part of it – the Munster Basin, covering today’s Kerry and Cork – we have one of the densest masses of this rock in the world: at least 6 kilometres thick. And we have to appreciate what it has given to us – high mountain spines sweeping steeply down to an indented shoreline of coves, creeks and inlets, with the myriad mottled islands that we oversee. An unparalleled, unfolded world.

After the ‘desert’ period, but much later – only about a million and a half years ago – came the Pleistocene Epoch. the word is from the Greek pleistos and kainos – meaning ‘most recent’ – and that brings us almost up to date. That was a time of great climate events: deserts were inundated and then covered in ice sheets 3 kilometres thick, while moving glaciers tore up the rock surfaces, advancing and retreating several times. Eventually, what had been desert became arctic tundra. It is supposed that the ancestors of our present day life forms happened along during this epoch, and managed to survive. But we don’t find any traces of them until after the last ice sheet retreated in our part of the world – only about 12,000 years ago. The landscape that was left behind was inundated by rising sea levels, and the very last land bridge (between Cornwall and the eastern tip of Wexford) was washed away after that, but not before the Giant Elk and its mammal relations had got a foothold on the western side. The snakes, however, didn’t make it. And what of the humans?

Well, the humans embraced the rocky landscape. They made their marks on the outcrops; then they moved the rocks about, and made architecture from them. We can still see their efforts, some 5,000 years later.

These Neolithic carved motifs could be the earliest human interventions on the natural Irish landscape: they might date from 3,000 BC. These examples are from West Cork, and were only discovered a few years ago. Finola wrote the definitive thesis on Rock Art when she studied at UCC in the 1970s, and we have staged exhibitions and given talks on the topic.

A couple of thousand years later, Irish people started to build things with the stones they found around them. This wedge tomb under the backdrop textures of Mount Gabriel at Ratooragh has rested here since the Bronze Age. Finola’s post today uncovers the fascinating folklore stories that generations have told about such artefacts. But restlessly working the fabric of the landscape – Old Red Sandstone – into walls, shelters, tower houses, temples and towns has never ceased.

Ellen Hutchins: The Short and Remarkable Life of Ireland’s First Female Botanist

Working with the Ellen Hutchins Festival over the last few years, I have come to think of Ellen as a ghost-friend. Having just finished this year’s involvement (above, Karen Minihane reads one of Ellen’s letters on Esk Mountain) I was looking over my posts about the Festival over the years and realised it had been over ten years since I wrote and posted about her life. So I am reposting this account from 2015, unchanged, to show you our excitement at what we were discovering. It’s also a good introduction to Ellen.

Ballylickey House, Home of Ellen Hutchins. Although the burned down, it was rebuilt exactly as the original.
Ballylickey House, Home of Ellen Hutchins. Although the house burned down, it was rebuilt exactly as the original

Re-posted from 2015

In West Cork, we have been celebrating the short but extraordinary life of Ellen Hutchins who died 200 years ago this year. Acknowledged in her lifetime as one of the most knowledgeable and accomplished botanists in the British Isles, she contributed specimens and drawings to the great collections in Glasnevin and Kew and kept up a lively and learned correspondence with some of the leading botanical scientists of the day. When she died, aged only 29, her name had already been memorialised: several plant specimens bore the title hutchinsia.

Looks and character

It’s been a fantastic week of lectures, guided walks, exhibitions and demonstrations. Jointly organised by the Bantry Historical Society, the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Hutchins family, the week has been a marvellous success, with all the events well attended and everyone eager to learn more about Ellen. For a program of what was available, take a look at the excellent Ellen Hutchins website and the Facebook page.

Dublin Botanic Gardens

While many of Ellen’s specimens ended up in Kew Gardens, some went to what has become the Dublin Botanical Gardens

The website contains biographical data about Ellen, her accomplishments, her family and her place in the scientific community, and a links and resources section leading to much more information. Ellen Hutchins was born in Ballylickey, near Bantry, in 1785 and spent most of her life there. During schooldays in Dublin she lived with family friend Dr Whitley Stokes who introduced her to the discipline of botanizing. She became an avid and scholarly collector of plants and seaweed, annotating, sorting and cataloguing as she went, and an expert illustrator of marine and terrestrial specimens.

Quiet cove, Bantry Bay
Ellen identified new species of seaweeds on the shores around Bantry Bay

She roamed freely around the shores of Bantry Bay and took her family’s boat out to Whiddy Island. She also climbed (we’re not sure how) to the top of Knockboy, the highest mountain in Cork at 700m, identifying new species of plants right at the top. We followed her footsteps last weekend, led by Wildlife Officer Clare Heardman of Glengarriff Nature Reserve, botanist Rory Hodd, writer Kevin Corcoran, and Madeline Hutchins, great great grandniece of Ellen, who has been uncovering all kinds of new material on her ancestor.

group botany

What a day we had! It was warm and dry until we got to the top, where we were subjected to a hailstorm for form’s sake before the sun re-emerged. It was an insight into what gets botanists excited – tiny plants, apparently, with subtle variations from other tiny plants.

Among the bog cotton
Rory talks roots
Bog asphodel
Not heather after all – wild thyme!

We were in awe of the knowledge on display, and the boundless enthusiasm of all the plant experts in the group. The highlights for them were finding some of the species that bore Ellen’s name, although Rory and Clare were particularly pleased to find a dwarf willow at the summit that had originally been identified by Ellen over 200 years ago. Along the way, we also learned a lot about the characteristics of that kind of high mountain environment, with its burden of boggy moss and highly acidic environment.

Kevin Corcoran demonstrated the properties of sphagnum moss, and showed us how soft the bog underneath us was, by probing with his staff
Knockboy descent

We felt on top of the world on Knockboy. We drove up to Priest’s Leap and only climbed the final 300m.  But how did Ellen get up there, with her long skirts and her intermittent poor health?

In Bantry House we viewed Ellen’s drawings, beautifully framed and presented and on loan from their permanent homes in Kew Gardens, Trinity College, Dublin and elsewhere. Her drawings were used by other botanists to illustrate books and were considered to be superior in their exactitude.

The Bantry Library hosted an exhibition about her life. This was curated by Madeline Hutchins and here we came closer to appreciating the woman herself, of whom no portrait exists. We learned, through her letters, of the struggles of a home life dominated by an ailing mother, a disabled younger brother and two bitterly feuding older brothers. She suffered from intermittent ill health, which often prevented her from collecting, but when she was strong her delight in her outdoors pursuits was palpable. One of her greatest pleasures was her correspondence with fellow botanists, among whom she earned true respect, especially Dawson Turner.

Dawson Turner

Dawson Turner: Although they never met, he thought of Ellen as a beloved sister and was devastated when she died

Although we were not able to join the group tour of the Ardnagashel Arboretum, we ventured down there on our own and were shown around the east section by the gracious Arethusa Greacen, herself a Hutchins on her mother’s side. The arboretum was started by Ellen’s brother and was maintained and added to by succeeding generations of Hutchins – the botany gene was obviously strongly embedded in the family!

Myrtle Woods Path

Ardnagashel colour
Myrtle groves and colour at Ardnagashel

The enormous contribution made by Ellen Hutchins to science has languished in obscurity for two centuries, known only to a few experts in the field (a bit like that other West Cork woman of science, Agnes Clerke of Skibbereen). All that changed last week. West Cork, and Bantry/Ballylickey in particular, has celebrated and honoured Ellen Hutchins in style. There is talk of future events, perhaps even a summer school.

Ellen Plaque

A new plaque has been erected on the wall of the old ruined church in Garryvurcha graveyard, final resting place of Ellen Hutchins

Well done to the hardworking organisers of this exceptional festival! Thank you to them for illuminating the life of this remarkable woman and to helping us appreciate, in the most hands-on and interesting way, her enormous contributions to science.

Madeline Clare Angela

The team behind the Ellen Hutchins Two Hundred Year Celebration: Madeline Hutchins, great great grandniece and biographer of Ellen; Clare Heardman of the National Parks and Wildlife Service; Angela O’Donovan of the Bantry Historical Society. This photo was taken from the Ellen Hutchins 200 Years Facebook Page, with appreciation

Don’t forget to check out the website Ellen Hutchins: Ireland’s First Female Botanist for so much more detail than I could give you in a blog post.

Peter Somerville-Large and The Coast of West Cork

I was out of the country when the writer, Peter Somerville-Large, died in October – I just realised this week that he is gone. What another loss to the world of Irish culture and writing. I never met Peter, but we exchanged letters in the aftermath of me publishing the post I wrote in 2014 and which I reproduce below – a review of his most beloved book, The Coast of West Cork. The book is still in print, although the newer paperback editions lack the black and white photographs of the original.

Here’s an example, and it’s one that shows why this book is such an important record of its time, the early 1970s. According to Mindat, The Coosheen Copper Mine was. . .

Once dubbed the “richest mine in the world” by a correspondent with the London Times, . . . worked a small but extremely rich copper deposit close to the surface from 1839-1877. The mine briefly reopened in 1888-1890 and again in 1906-1907 but only produced a trivial amount of ore. . . On the top of the hill 5 fenced off shafts can be seen and the largely obliterated ruins of the engine house built in August 1860 (bulldozed by the local council in the 1980’s as it was deemed both dangerous and an eyesore!).

This photograph of Ballydehob reminds us what a thriving commercial town it was. 55 years later, you can still recognise the shopfronts, although few are actively trading.

The final photograph from the original edition of the book that I want to share is of a temperance meeting in Skibbereen. Do any of our readers remember this?

And now, here is the original post, written 11 years ago, 1n 2014

The Coast of West Cork

Coast of West Cork cover

Every personal library in West Cork, maybe in Ireland, has a copy of the book The Coast of West Cork by Peter Somerville-Large. First published in 1972, it is a classic of travel writing – amusing, learned, thoughtful – that still holds up as a fascinating portrayal of this part of the world. The photograph above is of the front cover of the book, signed by the author, that I brought with me to Canada when I emigrated in 1974. Forty years later, I am living on the very spot where this photograph was taken! It took me a while to figure this out, as the picture is actually reversed. [EDIT: note that when this photograph was taken, in 1970, the castle was still intact – most of it collapsed in a storm in 1974. For what it looks like now, see Robert’s 2020 post, The Castle of Rossbrin.]

Peter Somerville-Large, now in his 80s, is still writing. He is connected to the old Castletownshend families (Edith Somerville was a relation and he mentions Townsend aunts) and was already very familiar with West Cork when he set out to tour it by bicycle in the spring of 1970. He takes every road, every byway and boreen, and describes in detail the scenery, the characters and the conditions along the way.

Grand road for cycling!
Grand road for cycling!

Far more than a travel diary, this is a comprehensive account of West Cork. Somerville-Large’s erudition is impressive. Either before or after his journey he spent many hours in the National Library, researching the history, folklore, archaeology and literature of the area and he weaves this knowledge seamlessly into his narrative. Because of his own personal background, he is able to include stories and anecdotes from the Big Houses of the gentry. A great aunt

…remembered going down to a cellar which was filled with swords used to arm the tenants during the time of the Whiteboys and also with empty stone wine jars which had carried wine smuggled in from France. From this cellar there was believed to be a passage underground to the O’Driscoll Castle of Rincolisky, whose truncated remains are to be found in a neighbouring field…An earlier Townsend sent his…page down the passage to see if it was clear. The boy was never seen again.

Castletownsend Castle
Castletownshend Castle

His affection for the place leads him to mourn the loss of population from the Islands of Roaringwater Bay.

One by one the small islands became deserted…Only a few years ago I visited Horse Island, just opposite Ballydehob. The last people there, an elderly couple, were living all alone. It was summer, and the old man was sitting in a chair outside his house, his feet in a basin of water. His wife, behind him, fed hens. Next year, they were gone. The house, still intact and comfortable, stood empty, the linoleum in place, last year’s calendar on the wall. Down by the pier a plough had been thrown into the water where it looked like a gesture of despair.

Looking across to Horse Island
Looking across to Horse Island

He documents the importance of the creamery in the social life of the townlands, the old occupations of fishing and mining and the loss of such sources of income, the string of castles that dot the coast and the great irish families that built them, the brash new bungalows springing up around the scenic areas, the awful legacy of the famine, and the sheer beauty of the scenery. He is conscious of a way of life passing. Going out of his way to visit a sweathouse (a feature of the Irish countryside in times past) he ends up in the O’Sullivan’s kitchen, drinking whiskey and eating biscuits.

Mrs. Sullivan told me that the valley was once thickly populated, and when she was a girl there had been sixty children at the school that closed last year. The way of life had gone with it…Once it had been a great place to live in, her husband said. There were monthly fairs at Ballydehob and Schull, and he had walked all the way to Bantry with the cattle and all the way back again.

Deserted cottage
Deserted cottage

The parts I have quoted deal with the area around where we live, but the bicycle trip stretches from Clonakilty to the Beara Peninsula. Describing West Cork as it was in 1970, it is now an important historical document in its own right, alongside such accounts as Thackery’s Irish Sketchbook of 1879, or the Pacata Hibernia of 1633. Mostly, however, it is a charming, engaging and fascinating depiction of a special place.

Over the hill to Durrus
Over the hill to Durrus

Crookhaven Through Time

I’ve had the most marvellous emails from James Goggin – thank you James! Three of his grandparents came from Crookhaven – and the fourth, well that’s him in this spectacular photograph. Yes, he’s in a diving suit. James tells me: His name was Allen G Tyson, and he had come from Wales to work at the Crookhaven Quarry, seconded from Flintshire council in North Wales. Aggregates from the quarry were sent to North Wales amongst other places. He was a tall man and brilliant mathematician and civil engineer and lived with us in later life until his death in ’79. He designed the first dual carriageway in N.Wales and worked on the blue jubilee bridge in Queensferry (similar to and at the same time as Sydney and Newcastle bridges). 

The quarry, of course, is the monumental structure, above, that Robert wrote about in his post Industrial Archaeology in Crookhaven, one of our most popular posts. It seems that anyone who has ever been to Crookhaven has wondered about that wall of concrete across the bay. James also sent me this shot of a group of men who worked at the quarry. Cloth caps and moustaches were the order of the day – except for Allen Tyson – he’s the suited and coiffed individual in the back row.

Once in Crookhaven, Allen met and married Bridget O’Driscoll. They had 5 children, including James’s mother Phyllis, who married Joe Goggin. Joe died not too long ago at the age of 91 and still has a sibling in Clonakilty, James remembers happy family holidays in his Nana’s house, the old Barracks next to the Marconi House in the village. He is full of stories and precious memories.

My father used to row coal to the Fastnet for a shilling or two.  He told me of an uncle who used to shoot the sea mines ( like prickly conkers) with a .303 from Carrigeen cliffs off Rock Street. Nana would climb down to the sea for driftwood for the fire into her 70s. I remember the sacred heart picture and light, and the lights would flicker as I believe there was a generator in the village for power. A large old transistor radio in the kitchen with all the valves visible. Cold cupboard (a safe) under the stairs. Soda bread (and marmalade daily made in the range.  

James told me several other stories about his father, whom he admired and loved. But he also sent me another gem! A link to a movie, I Thank a Fool, made partly in Crookhaven, and released in 1962. You can watch it here – the Crookhaven parts start around the 1:09 mark and it is a complete nostalgia fest for those of us who love this part of the world. Here are some screen captures.

The village is still totally recognisable.

The 1804 Brow Head Signal Station is used as a ‘house’ where some of the action takes place. You can see Marconi’s Wireless Telegraph station in the background. For more on these structures go here for Marconi and here for the Signal Station.

There is also a funeral at St Brendan’s Church. The procession gives us a marvellous opportunity to see back to Crookhaven and the mining magazine that was once clearly visible behind the town, but which is no longer a mark on the landscape. I’ve used that as my feature image at the top of the post, but here’s another take. That’s Peter Finch as the leading man.

I love it when this kind of serendipity happens – thanks again, James. I know that anyone who loves Crookhaven, as we do, will really like this walk through past times.

The Return of the Earls: The 2025 Crowley Clan Gathering

I spent Saturday in Baltimore celebrating, with dozens of Crowleys, a signal occasion. This celebration involved the iconic boat The Saoirse, exhaustive genealogical research, long lost cousins meeting for the first time in over 300 years, and a remembrance of a devastating episode in Irish History – the Flight of the Earls. 

Let’s start with the Flight of the Earls. The Battle of Kinsale in 1601, was the moment that marked the end of the power of the great Irish families and the end of the Gaelic way of life. Many heads of those families who had fought at the battle fled Ireland from Rathmullen in Donegal, heading for the continent, in 1607. Their names can be found in the lists of those who fought in the armies of Spain, France and the Austrian Empire, as well as, sometimes lightly disguised, as landowners, wine-growers and grandees in those countries.

However, one of the leaders, Red Hugh O’Donnell of Donegal, set out earlier, on January 6th, 1602, and he sailed from nearby Castlehaven (below). You can find the whole story, told in a highly entertaining way, on the website of our old friend Gormú. That’s Richard King‘s rendition of Red Hugh, above, being offered a poison cup by a traitor, causing him to die in Spain (where his grave has recently been identified). My lead photograph is his statue, by Maurice Harron, in Donegal town and the cartoon is by John Dooley Reigh, from The Nation (I think). We in West Cork have never forgotten that this is a West Cork story and we feel we can claim Red Hugh as one of our own. This connects us in a special way to the whole saga of the Flight of the Earls.

That flight did not stop in 1607 – Irish men and women, clan chieftains, soldiers and peasants alike, continued to leave for the continent over the next centuries. 

Among those who left were the parents of Don Pedro Alonso O’Crouley. Here are the details from the Crowley Clan website:

Pedro Alonso O’Crouley was born in Cadiz in 1740. Both his parents had emigrated from Ireland. His father Dermetrio (Diarmuid or Jeremiah) was from Limerick claiming descent from Cormac O’Crowley born in Carbery, Co. Cork in 1550. His mother was an O’Donnell from Bally Murphy in Co. Clare.

At nine years old he was sent to France where he got a classical education from the Augustinians at Senlis. He chose to follow a career as a merchant and got a licence for Veracruz and made his first journey to Mexico at the age of 24. Over the next ten years he repeated the journey several times and built up a large fortune from his trading business.

While in Mexico, or “New Spain” as it was called, he gathered every bit of information he could about the country and its history, geology, vegetation, animals, etc. and wrote up his findings in the “Idea compendiosa” – A description of the Kingdom of New Spain” in 1774.

After returning from Mexico O’Crowley stayed on in Cadiz pursuing his interests in antiquities and history. In 1794 he published a catalogue of his private collections called “Musaei o’croulanei”. It lists over 5,000 Greek and Roman coins and 200 paintings including works by Van Dyck, Rubens, Murillo, Velaquez, Zurbaran and Ribera. He also had many geological specimens he had gathered in New Spain.

Pedro remains very famous in Cadiz, where his house functions as a museum. And – there are descendants! In 2014 the Crowley website received a letter:

My name is José María Millán Fuentes, and I am a descendant of O’Crowley. I live in Cádiz, Spain, and I am doing work for the University of Málaga on my ancestors. I speak very badly English, but I have a lot of interest in the topic. I would like to help you, and that you also should help me. I have read in your web Antonio Castro, and also I descend from Pedro Alonso O’Crowley O’Donell and Adelaida Riquelme O’Crowley. I have a lot information about the family up to Pedro Alonso, but then everything fades away.

Eleven years later, José Maria is to be the guest of honour at the Crowley clan gathering. The committee discusses how best to make the most of this moment and comes up with a genius idea. He should arrive by sea, born into Baltimore on the iconic boat, the Saoirse. Read about the Saoirse here, and for true traditional wooden boat enthusiasts, you can buy Kevin O”Farrell’s brilliantly photographed book on its reconstruction in Hegarty’s boatyard. 

The Saoirse is a big, gaff-rigged yacht, the original version of which was built to sail around the world. It requires a great deal of skill to sail, and thus the task was entrusted to Liam Hegarty.

A flotilla of traditional wooden boats was to accompany her into the harbour but high winds scuppered that plan so in the end only two boats made up the guard of honour – Cormac Levis’s Saoirse Muireann (above) and Nigel Towse’s Honorah. 

It was thrilling to see the Saoirse round the Beacon point and tack into Baltimore. I stood with a large contingent of Crowleys, waving flags and cheering, while a group of lively dancers set all our toes tapping.

The most moving moment was when José María  climbed up the ladder to the pier, to be met with his 7th cousin, Kevin Crowley from Martinstown, Co Limerick, and enfolded in a welcoming embrace. The Clan Taoiseach, Larry Crowley gave a short, perfect speech. He said, and I paraphrase – José María, your ancestors fled Ireland 300 years ago. They were escaping from oppression, from poverty, from dispossession and from the consequences of resistance. But here we are now, all of us proud Europeans, standing shoulder to shoulder. 

Led by a piper, we marched up to the village square.

I was struck by the aptness of the Spanish flags passing under the walls of Baltimore Castle – a castle that, in its day serviced the vast Spanish fishing fleets that came for the pilchards and herring. The O’Driscolls became fabulously wealthy through that commerce, and forged alliances with the Spanish that came back to bite them in later years.

There were more speeches, including a masterful summing up of Baltimore’s history by William Casey, and then a squall had us running for cover. The Algiers Inn and other eateries in Baltimore served up a smashing array of sandwiches and soup. I chatted with New Zealand Crowleys and American Crowleys and Irish Crowleys – we all agreed that it had been a perfect Welcome Home.

I may not have all the details exactly right – corrections welcome from knowledgeable Crowleys. My special thanks to Charlie Crowley for inviting me along.

Sherkin Friary

The Franciscan Friary on Sherkin Island (also called the Abbey) was established by Fineen (Florence) O’Driscoll, chief of the wealthy O’Driscoll clan, which had its headquarters in what is now Baltimore, but which, in the middle ages, answered to the name of Dún na Séad – Fort of the Jewels (how’s that for flaunting your wealth?). We know this because Fineen applied to the Pope himself for permission to found a friary. The Pope was Nicolas V, here seen in his portrait by Rubens. Although he was only Pope for eight years he was highly influential and responsible for many church innovations (such as the Vatican Library) and buildings (he started St Peter’s Basilica). He’s certainly giving Rubens the side-eye.

Ann Lynch, who excavated the Friary between 1987 and 1990 (source of much of the information below) tells us that Nicolas, despite being so busy in Rome,  

. . .in 1449, mandated Jordan Purcell, bishop of Cork, his dean, and a canon of Ross to license and to found a friary in his territory in honour of God, St. John and St. Francis. . . This reference is thought to refer to Sherkin Island (also known as Inis Arcain) and the licence explicitly states that the friars are to be under the jurisdiction of the Observant movement. There is no reference to building the friary however until 1460-2 when the  founder is given as Florence O’Driscoll.

The Franciscan Friary on Sherkin Island, Co. Cork, Excavations 1987-1990,

Ann Lynch, 

Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, 2018, 55–127

The Observant Movement aimed to restore the order’s focus on poverty, simplicity, and communal living as originally envisioned by Saint Francis. They did indeed seem to have lived a simple life – the only comfortable room in the place, and one use for communal living, was the chapter house, below.

The siting of the Friary, close to Dun na Long Castle (see last week’s post) was not unusual in medieval Ireland, apparently. The castle was supposed to provide protection for the Friary, while the Friary afforded spiritual benefits to the castle inhabitants and the O’Driscoll chiefs. However, as we have seen last week, this didn’t go according to plan. The Waterford men sacked the castle in 1538 and plundered the Friary, setting it alight, and leaving it badly damaged.

They also made away with the Friary bell, as well as some chalices and other valuables. Below is the base of the famous Timoleague Chalice, probably very similar to what was stolen. You can read the story of the Timoleague chalice here.

While the Friars fled for a while, they did return and lived at the friary until the last of them, Fr Patrick Hayes, died sometime after 1766. The Bechers took possession of it at that point and held on to it until they handed it over to the Commissioners of Public Works in 1892. It has been in the care of the State since then.

In form, the Friary is fairly typical of Franciscan houses in Ireland, with a long nave and chancel church, a bell tower, a cloister, side chapels, and a chapter house and refectory. 

The nave and chancel run slightly north of east-west, due to the lie of the land. The West window has three lights and attractive tracery. We know that these would have contained stained glass, since fragments were found during the excavation, but we don’t know what they would have depicted. One of the charming features of this window are the heads – two still present although the one at the apex is too worn to make out, and a third indicated by a gap at the base of the hood moulding.

I am tempted to see a female saint in  the one head that is still fairly complete. After all, St Mona is the patron saint of Sherkin, so why would it not be her?

The tower or belfry, situated between the nave and the chancel, is a familiar feature of Franciscan Friaries – we see the same thing (although on a larger scale) in Timoleague.

The base of this Sherkin tower has a little decorative carving – a very welcome note of frivolity in what is overall a plain building. Although, of course, we do not know how it was decorated: it may have had frescoes and painted walls and have been quite colourful, although generally the strictly observant friaries were not highly decorated.

The chancel (the inner sanctum) also has an eastern three-light tracery window, identical to the one at the west end. There are various niches in the walls in the chancel, and I am wondering if one of them might be an Easter Sepulchre. I have just been learning about these in the latest Archaeology Ireland magazine, in a fascinating piece by Christiaan Corlett. You can read more about them here. In essence they were resting places, from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, of the crucifix, the Host and various other sacred elements, all of which would have been contained in a carved box, which was then deposited in the niche. This niche certainly fits the bill, except that it is on the south wall, rather than the more normal north wall.

The cloister was filled with rubble when Ann Lynch started her excavations. Nothing of it was to be seen, but as you can see the excavation revealed a small but perfectly formed feature.

And it seems that this is where the monks were buried! As the friars were pacing the cloister walk, intoning their office, they were walking on ground above the bones of their brethren who had died before them. Twenty four of them were found, aligned with their heads to the west and their feet to the east. There were no grave goods: they were buried as simply as they had lived.

Later, in the 17th and eighteenth centuries, the west end of the friary was used as a fish palace – a place for curing fish and packing them into barrels. The holes in the walls in the image below would have held press-beams. See Robert’s post Fish Palaces and How They Worked, for more on this. Somehow that seems like an ignominious end for a place built as a focus of worship. 

Today, the first thing you see as you step off the ferry is the friary, peaceful and beautiful in its island setting. It has seen its fair share of turbulence, of industry and of neglect. Now it reminds us that life goes on despite all that, but it never stays the same.