A stunning abbey with a dark past 

Burishoole Friary is situated in a beautiful inlet on Clew Bay. It was founded in 1469 by Sir Richard de Burgo of Turlough for the Dominican order. De Burgo was an ancestor of Risteárd an Iarainn Bourke, the second husband of Grainne O’Malley. Burishoole is often called an abbey but technically it is a friary as no abbots resided here. Burishoole, like many churches, was attacked during the Reformation and during the Cromwellian Invasion of Ireland. It was recorded in 1652 that two 100-year-old nuns who escaped from here to the nearby Saint’s Island were later captured by English soldiers who stripped them naked, broke their ribs, and left them to die on a cold winter day! This became an important burial site and the oldest inscribed tomb in the church is the O’Kelly altar tomb which has a Latin inscription dated 1623. Peregrine O’Cleirigh, one of the Four Masters, is also buried in the abbey dated 1664.