Saturday 7 October 2017

Multyfarnam Friary

From Thomas Walsh's History of the Irish Hierarchy:


Multifarnam in the barony of Corkery and on the river Gaine. William Delamar founded the Franciscan monastery of Multifernam in the year 1236.

AD 1460 it was reformed by the strict observants.

AD 1529 a provincial chapter had been held here. In the eighth of Henry VIII, the convent of Multifarnam and its appurtenances, a water mill and thirty acres of arable land, were granted to Edmund Field, Patrick Clynch and Philip Pentenoy at a fine of £80 and an annual rent of 4s.

When the fury of the storm which Henry and his daughter Elizabeth had evoked somewhat abated, this convent was again placed in the possession of the Franciscans and continued in their hands during the reign of Charles I until it was consigned to the flames by the Rochforts, a powerful family in the country. The walls of the cloister are still complete while the surrounding ruins with the steeple rising from a small arch to a height nearly of one hundred feet and situated on the borders of a delightful lake contribute to render its scenery both picturesque and magnificent. By the united exertions of a spirited public this abbey has been lately rebuilt and is now finished in a style worthy of its former greatness. The convent of Multifarnam stands and its abbey flourishes while the spoiler and the plunderer have disappeared and have been laid low in the dust.

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