Qualla: Dysert O'Dea Monastery

Dysert O'Dea Monastery: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JohnArmagh, Public domain. In 1651, a Cromwellian artillery crew set up cannons within range of a tower they did not understand, and opened fire. The round tower at Dysert O'Dea - built in the late 11th century, originally about thirty metres tall - had been converted into a fortification a century earlier by some now-unknown defender. The cannon fire shattered most of it. Only the lower third still stands today, a stump of fitted limestone next to the ruined church it once announced from across the surrounding plain. The Cromwellians had no particular grudge against the hermitage of an 8th-century saint named Tola. They simply objected to any tower that looked defensible.

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Image: JohnArmagh | Public domain

Dysert O'Dea Monastery: The Hermitage of Tola

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NateBergin, CC BY 4.0. Dysert O'Dea - from the Irish Díseart Uí Dheá, "the hermitage of Deá" - lies near Corofin in County Clare. The site is thought to have been founded in the 8th century by St. Tola, an Irish monk who established a small religious community here in the centuries when Irish monastici...

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Image: NateBergin | CC BY 4.0

Dysert O'Dea Monastery: The Romanesque Church

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wolfgang Sauber, CC BY-SA 4.0. Most of what survives at Dysert O'Dea above the foundations is 12th-century work. The ruined church measures over 30 metres long and is built in the Romanesque style that swept Ireland in the 12th century as the country reformed its monastic structures along continental European ...

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Image: Wolfgang Sauber | CC BY-SA 4.0

Dysert O'Dea Monastery: St. Tola's Cross

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Scummy at English Wikipedia, CC BY 2.5. Beside the church stands St. Tola's High Cross, a 12th-century carved limestone cross that ranks among the finest medieval Irish high crosses. Cromwellian soldiers knocked it over during the 1651 campaign. Michael O'Dea repaired it in 1683. Because he used stones from the church ...

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Image: Scummy at English Wikipedia | CC BY 2.5

Dysert O'Dea Monastery: The Battle of 1318

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Christoph Radtke, CC BY 3.0. Not far from the monastery, in May 1318, the Battle of Dysert O'Dea reshaped Irish history. The Anglo-Norman knight Richard de Clare led a force from the de Clare colony in Thomond against Conor O'Dea and his Gaelic allies, principally the Uí Briain dynasty under Murtagh O'Brien....

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Image: Christoph Radtke | CC BY 3.0

Dysert O'Dea Monastery: The Bell That Bought a Bell

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Photograph Tobias Helfrich, March 27th, 2004. Modified by Pumbaa, 09:09, 7 April 2006 (UTC), CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1790, someone discovered an old bronze bell at Dysert O'Dea. The bell - a medieval Irish hand bell of the type that monks once rang from the round tower at canonical hours - was taken to Corofin, sold, and the proceeds used to buy a new bell for the parish church. There is som...

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Image: Photograph Tobias Helfrich, March 27th, 2004. Modified by Pumbaa, 09:09, 7 April 2006 (UTC) | CC BY-SA 3.0