Despite being bound by oaths of poverty, members of mendicant religious orders established sumptuous establishments across the west of Ireland during the Middle Ages.
This observation will form part of a Galway Archaeological and Historical Society presentation on Dominican, Franciscan, Carmelite, and Augustinian hermitages across the west of Ireland, in the Harbour Hotel, next Monday, December 8, at 8pm.
Mendicant orders in the west of Ireland: History and Architecture will be delivered by Tadhg O’Keefe, Professor of Archaeology in UCD, where he has taught since 1996.
The four great mendicant orders of the middle ages arrived in Ireland in the 13th Century. These orders had friaries all over Ireland – a few were very fancy, despite the friars’ insistence on poverty. The west of Ireland has some of the most notable friaries in western Europe.
This lecture explores the circumstances in which friars crossed the Shannon, the roles they held in the medieval west, and the nature of their surviving architecture.
Prof O’Keefe has published widely on medieval architecture. His many books include Medieval Irish Architecture and the Concept of Romanesque: building traditions in eleventh- and twelfth-century Europe (2024 ). He is currently working on a project titled Archaeology and the Global Middle Ages.
