ByRoute 10.2 Co. Tipperary & Co. Clare
Quin (Co. Clare / East)
Quin is a rapidly growing village on the River Rine.
Quin Abbey
Quin Abbey is a well-preserved ruin is of a mainly C15th Franciscan friary built by the MacNamara clan to replace a far earlier monastery that had been burned down in 1278. (Photo – www.nd.edu)
Quin Castle was erected on the site in 1280 by Sir Thomas de Clare in an attempt to subdue the MacNamaras. The strong-walled keep was destroyed six years later when Cuvea MacNamara, avenging the death of an O’Liddy chieftain killed by the Anglo-Norman garrison, attacked, ransacked and burned the castle, slaying most of the defenders. The foundations of the enormous corner towers can still be seen.
The remains of the castle were used to establish a new monastery c. 1350, and the curtain walls were incorporated into the south and east walls of the new abbey when Sioda Cam MacNamara built the cloisters in 1402. The bell-tower and Lady Chapel were erected by Mahon MacNamara in 1430. Three years later he allowed the Franciscan friars Fathers Purcell and Mooney to establish their friary in Quin. The great transept of the Abbey was completed c.1460 by Sean Mac Con, who also completed Bunratty Castle.
The abbey was officially suppressed in 1541, and in 1547 passed into the hands of Conor O’Brien, Earl of Thomond, who allowed the friars to continue living there. By 1548 it was described as “one great church, now ruinous, covered with slate, and a steeple greatly decayed“.
In 1584 Donough Beg O’Brien was hanged alive on the steeple of Quin Abbey after having his bones broken with the back of an axe and being half-hanged from a cart on the orders of Sir John Perrot. Crown forces maintained a barracks here until a namesake of Donough’s burned it over their heads in 1590.
The MacNamaras repaired the church with some help from other families in the district. In 1617 the Irish Franciscan Provincial, Fr Donough Mooney, commented on the few friars then in residence as “old, helpless men with scarcely a memory of the pre-suppression friary“. In about 1640 the building became a college, alleged to have had 800 students.
Cromwellian troops broke into the friary in 1653; they shot and beheaded Fr Rory MacNamara and hanged Fr Donald Mac Clancy and Br Dermot MacInerney. The Franciscans returned sporadically; the last friar of Quin remained until his death in 1820.
Although mostly roofless, the structure of the abbey is relatively well preserved. The cloister is one of the abbey’s finest features. The Lady Chapel is the resting place of the last of the MacNamara chieftains, John “Fireball” MacNamara, a direct descendant of the men who built this abbey, also buried here. The most unusual feature is the lavabo, or medieval toilet. The view from the top of the tower is most impressive and well worth the climb up the narrow spiral staircase. The graveyard surrounding the abbey is still in use.
A Visitors Centre is located nearby the abbey and the structure and grounds can be visited free of charge. A caretaker is permanently based at the abbey. Floodlighting has recently been installed which produces a spectacular sight at night.
Ardsolus (“the mound of light”) supposedly derives its name from the medieval practice of the friars of Quin Abbey in lighting a beacon for the guidance of travellers crossing this river ford, perhaps more correctly named Ath Solas (“the ford of light”). Long the halfway stop for horse drawn transport from Galway to Limerick, the “Toll Bridge” was a busy place between about 1760 and 1830, when fairs and Courts of law were held on a regular basis. Close by was a Malthouse with a large inscribed stone outside reading “entertainment for man and horse“. The renowned Races of Ardsolus were run on the great Hill overlooking Quin village.
St. Finghin’s church, on the far side of the River Rine from Quin Abbey, was built between 1278 and 1285; a square tower was later added. This long, rectangular ruin features the remains of a richly moulded window in the south wall. by 1839 John O’Donovan was unable to discover which Saint Finghin it commemorated or even which holy day had been kept in his honour. To the south of the church is a mausoleum to Captain William Spaight, who died in 1801.
Knappogue Castle & Garden
Knappogue Castle (Caislean na Cnapoige – “castle of the place abounding in little hills”) was built in 1467 by Sioda Cam MacNamara’s son Sean Mac Con, referred to in the Annals of the Four Masters as “the chief protector of the men of Ireland and renowned for his hospitality“. (Artist – Avril Brand)
As the MacNamaras supported the royalist cause in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Cromwellian soldiers turned Knappogue into a garrison. Arthur Smith occupied the building from 1659 to 1661, but the MacNamaras regained it after the Restoration.
Francis MacNamara sold Knappogue in 1800 to the Scott family, who spent a considerable amount of money renovating it. Theobold Fitzwalter Butler, 14th Baron Dunboyne, purchased the castle in 1855 as a new family seat for the Dunboyne dynasty, who continued the restoration work and added the west wing, clock tower and gateway.
Clare County Council met here during the Troubles, guarded by the local IRA “Flying Column”, whose commanding officer, Michael Brennan, used the building as his headquarters.
In 1927 the Knappogue demesne was acquired by the Land Commission and the castle came into the possession of the Quinn family.
Mark Edwin Andrews of Houston, Texas, former Assistant Secretary of the United States Navy, and his wife Lavonne, a prominent architect in the US, bought the property in 1966. In coöperation with the Shannon Free Airport Development Company and Bord Failte Eireann, they carried out an extensive restoration before leasing part of the building at a nominal rent to the Irish Government as a cultural and tourist amenity. The castle is now a Medieval Banquet venue from April to October, and guided tours are arranged daily.
Knappogue Walled Garden is a jewel dating from 1817, restored in the Victorian style. The 4.26m walls are adorned with climbing roses, grapevines and fig trees. Pathways lined with herbaceous borders pass shrubberies, a pergola, a rockery with fernery, a tranquil gazebo, and box-hedged rectangles planted with roses, sweet peas and lavender. Many are heritage varieties, including Lathyrus Cupani, the original sweet pea imported from Sicily in 1699, Lathyrus Painted Lady, another early sweet pea grown in Ireland in the 1700s, and the C16th Rosa moschata. The garden supplies the Castle with fresh herbs for daily use in the preparation of the mediaeval banquet. (Photo – www.tripadvisor.com)
Dangan Breac, a Tower House northeast of the Abbey, and Daingean Ui Bhigin Castle, three miles east-north-east of the village, were owned by John MacNamara in 1584. The ruins of the latter building, “slighted” in the closing days of the Cromwellian war, can be seen in the grounds of Dangan House. The MacNamaras, who owned 42 castles in County Clare, lost some of their holdings to two transplanted Roman Catholic families, the Creaghs and the Whites.
Ballykilty Manor, an elegant riverside country house, has a kitchen mantelpiece inscription stating that John MacNamara and his wife, Honora Clancy, built the chimneys in 1614. Most of the present house dates from the C18th. The original three-story front burned down in the C19th. The property was leased by the Earl of Thomond in 1661 to William Creagh, in 1732 to Thomas MacMahon, and in 1780 to Francis Davoren. The lease was purchased in 1785 by John Blood, whose descendants remained in possession until recently. The Conroy family now operate the Manor as a hotel / wedding venue, set in c.50 acres of mature parklands.
Magh Adhair
Magh Adhair, a 20ft high mound some 2 miles from the village, was from the C9th onwards an assembly place of the ancient Dal gCais to choose and crown their king in an elaborate ceremony. There are records of gatherings or aenaghs being held here even from earlier period. A long succession of Kings of Thomond, including Brian Boru, were inaugurated here down to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and ‘Iraghts’ of considerable local importance were held down to the Great Famine.
The flat-topped mound stands in a small plain, in a natural amphitheatre, formed by a low crag called Cragnakeeroge – ‘the Beetle’s Crag’, beside the strangely named ‘Hell Bridge’ and ‘Hell River’. The smaller mound close to the west side of the main platform is said to be the grave of a chieftain who sought burial in this venerated place.
Near the mound lies a large block of sandstone conglomerate of dull purple, with red and pink pebbles of porphyry and quartz; two oval basins are ground into its surface. Across the nearby stream there is a 6 ft high pillar / standing stone. It is assumed that these objects played a part in the crowning ceremony.
Magh Adhair is widely considered of equal importance to other historic places of assembly such as Tara, An Gianain Aileach and Emain Macha.
Craggaunowen - The Living Past is a 50-acre woodland “Celtic” park. Highlights include the Brendan, the leather-hulled boat that Tim Severin and his crew sailed across the North Atlantic in the 1970s, plus a reconstructed crannóg, a ringfort, a togher (an Iron Age road), and a fulacht fia.
Craggaunowen Castle (from Creagán Eoghain – “Eoghan’s little rocky hill”), a mid-C16th MacNamara Tower House on a crag overlooking the lake in the grounds of Craggaunowen Park, was “slighted” and left uninhabitable by Cromwellian soldiers c.1653. In the 1820s the property was inherited by a confederate of Daniel O’Connell’s known as ‘Honest’ Tom Steele, who rebuilt the castle and the turret on the hill opposite for use as places of recreation. Craggaunowen was restored and extended by historian, antiquarian and collector John Hunt in the 1960s.
Quin is
