St.Augustine as a way of life. Of the 120-odd mon-
asteries of Augustinian canons founded in twelfth- and
thirteenth-century Ireland, the number established
before 1169 is uncertain; that number may be as high
as one-third of the total, but the problem is that foun-
dation dates are not as secure as those for Cistercian
abbeys. Archaeology is of little help here, as there was
no such thing as an “Augustinian style” of monastic
architecture at any stage in the Middle Ages.
Anglo-Norman support for Augustinian canons
manifested itself in continued patronage of existing
houses and in the foundation of new houses. Some of
these were very substantial: Athassel priory, for exam-
ple, had one of the most extensive monastic complexes
and one of the finest churches in medieval Ireland,
while the now-destroyed St. Thomas’s in Dublin,
founded as a priory in 1177 and upgraded to an abbey
fifteen years later, was one of Ireland’s small number
of mega-rich monastic houses. The claustral plan was
widely employed in Augustinian houses founded by
Anglo-Normans; there is no evidence of its use in
Augustinian contexts prior to 1169 even though the
Cistercians were using it from the 1140s.
Friars’ Houses
Friars—Augustinian, Carmelite, Dominican, and
Franciscan—first appeared in Ireland in the early thir-
teenth century, but most of the 200-odd friaries date
from the period after 1350, and many of these had
Gaelic-Irish patrons. Friary churches tend to be long
and aisleless; large transepts were often added to their
naves to increase the amount of space available for
lay worship. Slender bell towers rising between the
naves and choirs are perhaps the most distinctive fea-
tures of friary churches.
Friaries were also claustrally planned, but their
cloisters are generally much smaller than those in
Cistercian abbeys or Augustinian priories, and are
invariably to the north of the churches rather than to
the south, which was the normal arrangement. The
cloister ambulatories (or alleyways) themselves were
sometimes unusual: Instead of timber lean-to roofs
they often had stone-vaulted roofs which also supported
the first-floor rooms of the claustral buildings. Conse-
quently, while friary cloister courts often seem rather
cramped, the dormitories often seem very spacious.
Beyond the Cloisters
Claustrally planned buildings constituted the func-
tional and geographic inner cores of monastic posses-
sions. Those possessions often included extensive
lands with out-farms (called granges). The Cistercians
were particularly adept at exploiting such lands.
A well-endowed monastery, whatever its affiliation,
would normally have an enclosing precinct wall with a
gatehouse; within the wall, a separate house for the abbot
or prior; an infirmary (or infirmaries, as some houses had
separate accommodation for monks, conversi,and the
poor); a guest house; and gardens, orchards and dove-
cotes (columbaria) to provide for the refectory tables.
Dovecotes are especially interesting. These small dome-
roofed buildings of circular plan were frequently built
very close to the churches, as at Ballybeg, Fore, and
Kilcooley—Augustinian, Benedictine, and Cistercian
foundations, respectively.
TADHGO’KEEFFEReferences and Further Reading
Craig, Maurice. The Architecture of Ireland from the Earliest
Times to 1880. London: Batsford, 1982.
Leask, Harold G. Irish Churches and Monastic Buildings.
3vols. Dundalk: Dundalgan Press, 1955–1960.
Mooney, C. “Franciscan Architecture in Pre-Reformation Ire-
land.,” Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland
85 (1955): 133–173; 86 (1956): 129–169; 87 (1957): 1–38
and 103–124.
O’Keeffe, Tadhg. An Anglo-Norman Monastery. Bridgetown
Priory, County Cork, and the Architecture of the Augustinian
Canons Regular in Medieval Ireland, Kinsale: Gandon Edi-
tions/Cork County Council, 1999.
Stalley, Roger. The Cistercian Monasteries of Ireland. London
and New York: Yale University Press, 1987.
See alsoArchitecture; Christ Church Cathedral;
Church Reform, Twelfth Century; Ecclesiastical
Sites; Religious Orders; St. Patrick’s Cathedral;
Ua Conchobair, TairrdelbachADOMNÁN MAC RÓNÁIN (c. 624–704)
Adomnán mac Rónáin was the ninth abbot of Iona
(679–704) and biographer of Colum Cille, Iona’s found-
ing saint. According to the genealogies, he was the son
of Rónán mac Tinne, one of the Cenél Conaill branch
of the Uí Néill, and a kinsman of Colum Cille, his father
being five generations descended from Colum Cille’s
grandfather, Fergus, son of Conall Gulban. His mother’s
name is given as Ronnat, one of the Cenél nÉnnae
branch of the Northern Uí Néill, situated around what
is now Raphoe in County Donegal. He is first mentioned
in the Annals of Ulsterin the year 687 as having been
on a mission to Aldfrith, king of Northumbria, to obtain
release of prisoners taken in a raid on Brega by his half-
brother Ecgfrith in 685, whom he then escorted back to
Ireland. On that occasion, he presented King Aldfrith,
who was Irish on his mother’s side, with a copy of his
De locis sanctis, an account of a voyage to and journeys
in the Holy Land and Jerusalem, purportedly taken from
a narrative given him by Arculf, a Gaulish bishop, and
supplemented by information in the volumes in theADOMNÁN MAC RÓNÁIN (c. 624–704)