Qualla: Clones Abbey https://qualla.com/clones-abbey en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/u/clones-abbey-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Clones Abbey https://qualla.com/clones-abbey Clones Abbey: Introduction https://qualla.com/clones-abbey/ Photo credit HughPatrick23, CC BY-SA 4.0. Stand in the centre of Clones and look up. A blunt grey stub of a tower rises above the rooftops, fifty-one feet tall, missing the conical cap that once added another twenty-four to its silhouette. This is the round tower of Clones Abbey, built in the ninth century from coursed sandstone, in the typical Irish tradition of free-standing belfries that doubled as refuges when the Vikings or rival kings turned up. The Town of Clones was founded by St Tigernach in the sixth century, anglicised in some local sources as St Tierney, and the monastery he placed here has been burned and rebuilt and burned again and rebuilt again until almost nothing of his original work survives. What does survive is a small museum of medieval Irish ecclesiastical art scattered across half a dozen streets.

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Image: HughPatrick23 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/u/clones-abbey-wp/gcdu-clones-abbey-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Clones Abbey: The Saint and His Patron https://qualla.com/clones-abbey/ Photo credit HughPatrick23, CC BY-SA 4.0. Tigernach of Clones lived in the late fifth and early sixth century. He was reputedly a grandson of an Ulster king and received his religious education in part at Whithorn in Galloway. According to medieval tradition he received the benediction of St Maccartin, was granted the bi...

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Image: HughPatrick23 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/u/clones-abbey-wp/gcdu-clones-abbey-the-saint-and-his-patron.mp3 0:06 2 full Clones Abbey: Burned Three Times, Rebuilt Three Times https://qualla.com/clones-abbey/ Photo credit HughPatrick23, CC BY-SA 4.0. Clones Abbey was destroyed by fire in 836, again in 1095, and again in 1184. Each time the monastic community rebuilt. In 1207 Hugh de Lacy, Earl of Ulster, razed both the abbey and the town. Five years later, in 1212, the English rebuilt them and added a castle. Around this peri...

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Image: HughPatrick23 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/u/clones-abbey-wp/gcdu-clones-abbey-burned-three-times-rebuilt-three-times.mp3 0:06 3 full Clones Abbey: The High Cross on the Diamond https://qualla.com/clones-abbey/ Photo credit HughPatrick23, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the centre of Clones, on the Diamond, the medieval marketplace, stands a fifteen-foot sandstone high cross. The shaft and head are separate pieces, the shaft older and dating from roughly 825 to 875 AD. Interlacing beads run up its sides and form a collar at the top, in the hi...

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Image: HughPatrick23 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/u/clones-abbey-wp/gcdu-clones-abbey-the-high-cross-on-the-diamond.mp3 0:06 4 full Clones Abbey: The Tomb in the Graveyard https://qualla.com/clones-abbey/ Photo credit HughPatrick23, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the abbey graveyard sits a stone sarcophagus shaped like a small steep-roofed house, decorated with worn animal-head carvings, traditionally said to contain the bones of St Tigernach. It is what archaeologists call a skeuomorph, a stone copy in miniature of an earlier wooden s...

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Image: HughPatrick23 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/u/clones-abbey-wp/gcdu-clones-abbey-the-tomb-in-the-graveyard.mp3 0:06 5 full Clones Abbey: What Survives, and Where to Find It https://qualla.com/clones-abbey/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The four pieces of the medieval monastic complex are scattered across the modern town. The round tower is in the old graveyard off Abbey Street, where the small Romanesque arch and window of the twelfth-century church also stand. The sarcophagus is nearby. The high cross is on th...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/u/clones-abbey-wp/gcdu-clones-abbey-what-survives-and-where-to-find-it.mp3 0:06 6 full