The Augustinian Houses of the County Clare:
Clare, Killone, and Inchicronan

Thomas Johnson Westropp
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Introduction

Among the monastic orders few will deny the high standing of the Augustinians, yet, from whatever cause, their history in many important houses in western Ireland is very little known, for they had no Wadding or Bruodin to collect their scattered traditions after the great dispersion. It would also seem as if the Franciscan and Dominican brethren lay nearer to the hearts of the people, and made a bolder and partially successful struggle for existence, making even those that bore rule over them to pity them. To collect scattered records, and carefully to describe the picturesque remains of three of the ruined Augustine houses in the heart of Clare is the object of this paper.
Human interest is but slightly present in the records of the Clare Augustinians, nor do they afford such touching pictures as the lonely monk of Ennis, or the brave and learned friars of Quin. In their attempts to beautify and honour the houses of God in the land, we shall, however, find much worth our study.
The Augustinian convents founded as such (in contradistinction to those older monasteries which adopted the rule of the order) in the Fergus valley are the monastery of the Augustinian canons of Corcovaskin on Canons Island, already described at some length in our Journal for 1897; the convent of St. John at Killone; the abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul of the Fergus or “Clare Abbey,” and the small house on the long tongue of land in Inchicronan Lake. Their foundation is traditionally attributed to King Donald More O’Brien, but documentary evidence seems forthcoming in only one place.

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