Ardmore, with its smooth beach, its colour-washed cottages and green fields is the pleasantest of places. It was once an Episcopal see which for centuries ranked high among the high places of Ireland. For it is said to have been founded by St. Declan who...
In the middle of Lough Derg is a solitary, uninhabited, 49 acre island whose atmosphere takes visitors back to the golden age of Irish Christianity. St Caimin founded a monastery here in the 7th century. It grew to be a large establishment, the well preserved...
The granite ridge that forms the lovely Wicklow and Blackstairs Mountains across the south-east corner of Ireland has given this region a distinctive character and history. For centuries it formed a barrier against invaders from the west. As a result, the inhabitants who settled on...
Kells/Ceanannus, County Meath One of the great centres of Celtic Christianity. where the Book of Kells may have been written and illustrated, this busy little crossroads today offers numerous reminders of its glorious past. Kells is also known as Ceanannus Mor. In AD 563, St Colmcille, also...
Fortresses In Ireland At almost every turn in the Irish countryside there are remnants of ancient forts, some now reduced to mounds overgrown with grass, others the crumbling fragments of once-massive strongholds. The story they tell is of a harsh and often dangerous existence endured over...
The seaside village of Ardmore stands on a promontory known mainly for its association with St Declan, the 5th century missionary who brought Christianity o this part of Ireland. St Declan is said to have been at sea when, in answer to prayer, a floating rock...
In the 6th century St Comghan founded a monastery here, which became not only a place of prayer but also a noted centre of culture and learning. The monastery was razed in the late 11th century and the present ruins date from the 12th century....
This former monastery is one of Ireland’s best-known and oldest religious sites, with the ruins of two churches, a Round Tower, a pre-Gothic sundial, a decorated grave slab and three High Crosses all packed into a cemetery. Founded in the 6th century by St Buite,...
A step through a gateway at the southern end of this straggling town takes visitors back 800 years in an instant, into the stillness of a 13th-century Franciscan friary, which was plundered by Robert Bruce in 1317. Later, in 1541, the friary was suppressed, Only...
Overlooking the basin of the River Barrow and with fine views of the plain that stretches to Dublin are the vestiges of a monastery founded in the 5th century by St Patrick, the patron Saint of Ireland, credited with bringing Christianity to the Island. Like...