Qualla: Mourne Abbey

Mourne Abbey: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The Speckled Bird, CC BY-SA 4.0. The medieval Irish called the place An Mhoin Mhor, the Great Bog. When the abbey rose here in north County Cork, between Mallow and Cork city, it took the same name in monastic form: Mainistir na Mona Moire, the abbey of the Great Bog. Latin documents shortened it to Mora. There is some confusion about who actually built it - earlier histories credited the Knights Templar around 1199, but the first datable mention comes in 1290, when the 'master of Mora' witnessed a charter for Hospitaller properties in Dublin. By then the Knights Hospitaller of St John were running the place. They held it until Henry VIII's commissioners closed it in 1541. The ruins are still there. Most of the original church is standing.

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Image: The Speckled Bird | CC BY-SA 4.0

Mourne Abbey: The Abbey on the Bog

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JohnArmagh, Public domain. The Hospitallers built more than a church. The original enclosure, much larger than what survives today, would have included a substantial gatehouse, a refectory, an infirmary, a guesthouse, a dormitory, stables, a brewhouse, a forge, and the working buildings any large agricultu...

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Image: JohnArmagh | Public domain

Mourne Abbey: Cromwell, and Then a Long Quiet

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The Speckled Bird, CC BY-SA 4.0. Barrett's Castle, on the hill above, came down around 1651, when Cromwell's army campaigned through Munster. The abbey itself was already a ruin by then. For the next two and a half centuries, Mourne Abbey was a parish of bog and farmland that travellers passed through on the way...

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Image: The Speckled Bird | CC BY-SA 4.0

Mourne Abbey: The Morning of 15 February

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Ashby, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Mallow Battalion of the IRA had been trying to ambush British convoys around Mourne Abbey for weeks through January 1921 without success. On the evening of 14 February they received word: a convoy was coming through the next morning, escorting General Cummings, the Officer in...

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Image: Robert Ashby | CC BY-SA 2.0

Mourne Abbey: Four Young Men

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. It was over quickly. The Burnfort company, armed only with shotguns, was outmatched. The British troops killed two volunteers on the high ground and shot the Creedon brothers up at Clogheen. The IRA withdrew westward toward Clashmorgan and waited a few hours before going home. Th...

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Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0