Qualla: Killagha Abbey

Killagha Abbey: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. Killagha Abbey of Our Lady of Bello Loco - 'Our Lady of the Beautiful Place' - took its Latin tag because the setting near the River Maine was, even by twelfth-century Irish standards, lovely enough to remark upon. Pilgrims came for it. The Augustinian canons who lived there grew wealthy enough that their Prior held a seat in the Irish House of Lords and the abbey paid the third-highest tax rate in the Diocese of Ardfert in 1302. Its remoteness from Dublin saved it, briefly. When Henry VIII began dissolving the monasteries, Killagha survived longer than most because the long road into Kerry made it inconvenient to suppress. But the same proximity that had once made it valuable - its closeness to the strategic fortress at Castle Maine - eventually drew the Crown's attention. The order to close came in 1576.

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Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

Killagha Abbey: Founded by an Anglo-Norman Justiciar

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. The abbey was founded around 1216 by Geoffrey de Marisco, Justiciar of Ireland - the chief royal administrator - on the site of an earlier monastery established by Saint Colman. That earlier foundation gave the abbey its alternative name, Kilcolman, meaning Church of Colman. Geof...

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Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

Killagha Abbey: Distance From Dublin

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada, CC BY 2.0. When Henry VIII began the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s, the wave of confiscations rolled west more slowly than it rolled east. Killagha's distance from Dublin meant the Crown's enforcement officers had farther to ride. The abbey continued in use longer than most Ir...

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Image: Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada | CC BY 2.0

Killagha Abbey: The Spring Family Takes the Abbey

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JohnArmagh, Public domain. After the seizure, the buildings and land were briefly leased to Thomas Clinton, one of Queen Elizabeth I's officers in Kerry, and then in 1583 to Sir William Stanley. On 12 December 1588 - the year of the Spanish Armada - the Crown transferred the abbey and its estate to Captain...

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Image: JohnArmagh | Public domain

Killagha Abbey: A Cromwellian Soldier and Three Centuries of Burial

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada, CC BY 2.0. Killagha Abbey was granted to Major John Godfrey, a Cromwellian soldier. The Restoration of Charles II in 1660 readjusted many Irish land grants, but Major Godfrey's was confirmed in the Act of Settlement 1662. The Godfreys held the property thereafter, but with the manor house d...

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Image: Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada | CC BY 2.0