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KILCREA ABBEY Ovens Kilcrea on a misty Sunday morning ….. can only see a few yards ahead and no sign of the castle across the road with the mist ….. just the sound of hounds and a gun across the fields somewhere. Inside, we see Art O Leary, (see art.htm) and Cormac Laidir armed with a copy of Richard Henchion's inscriptions, see Journal of the Cork Historical & Archaeological Society, Vo. 73, 1968 |
KILCREA, five miles out of Cork, in the barony of Muskery. Archidall says : ‘St. Cyra, or Chera, was abbess here, where her feast is celebrated, October 16th. A Franciscan monastery was founded in this town under the invocation of St. Bridget, by Carmac M’Carthaigh, the Great Prince of Desmond, in the year 1465. He was murdered by Owen, his brother, and was buried here, in the middle of the choir, with the following inscription on his tomb :- ‘Hic facet Marmacus, fil Thades, fil Cormaci, fil Dermilis Magni M’Carthy, Duns de Musgraigh Flayn, ac istius conventus primus fundator, an. Dom., 1494’ Thomas O Herlihy, Bishop of Ross, was interred here in 1579, and the Roman Catholics repaired this house in 1604. A great part of this building still remains, with the nave and choir of the church. On the south side of the nave is a handsome arcade of three Gothic arches, supported by marble columns, more massive than those of the Tuscan order. This arcade continues to form one side of a chapel, being a cross aisle. In the choir are some old tombs of the family of Clancarty, etc. The steeple, a light building about eighty feet high, and placed between the nave and the choir, is still entire and supported by Gothic arches. From the gateway, on either side to the high road, are high banks, entirely formed of human bones and skulls, which are cemented together with moss ; besides these, and a great number strewn about, there are several thousands piled up in the arches, windows, etc. The river Bride runs near this ruin. The lands were granted to Lord Muskerry, but after the wars of 1641, Oliver Cromwell gave them to Lord Broghill. – (from ‘The History of Cork,’ M. F. Cusack, Cork, 1875) |
 
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| Grave of Arthur O Leary, left |
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| Grave of Cormac Laidir |
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