Askeaton Friary or Abbey, a Franciscan monastery, was probably founded in 1389 by Gearóid Iarla, poet and Fourth Earl of Desmond. It contained the ancestral tomb of the Fitzgeralds. During the Desmond rebellions of the sixteenth century the commander of the English forces, Nicholas Malby, plundered the abbey in 1579 and put many of the friars to death in revenge for failing to take the castle. The abbey is still an impressive ruin and has many interesting features: the fine limestone cloisters, the stone carving of St. Francis, the burial site of two of the Irish martyrs, Patrick O’Healy and Conn O’Rourke, the Stephenson tomb, and the inscription to Martinez de Mendoza of Spain, the ‘Askeaton Pilgrim’, who died in 1784.
(Many thanks to the Askeaton parish website.)

Location: Askeaton, Co.Limerick

Photographer: Mark Callanan

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