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Cistercian Abbeys: ABBEYDORNEY Name:
Location: nr Abbeydorney village County:
Kerry Abbeydorney, also known as Odorney or Kyrie Eleison, was founded
in 1154 with monks from Monasteranenagh. No
reliable financial figures relating to the abbey survive although
the house is not likely to
have been prosperous. Christian O’Conarchy, the first abbot
of Mellifont Abbey, retired to the
abbey in later life, where he died and was buried in 1186. In
1227 the abbot of Abbeydorney was
deposed for his involvement in the ‘conspiracy of Mellifont’
(1216-28). In 1450 and again after 1460, the abbot of Abbeydorney
complained to the pope about unjust subjugation and unlawful payments
enforced by James de Geraldinis, Earl of Desmond, and others. In
1453 the abbot was accused of misrule by a monk of Monasteranenagh.
Following the Dissolution, Edmund, lord Kerry, was granted Abbeydorney,
and other monasteries, and was created Baron of Odorney and Viscount
of Kilmaule. However, the changes imposed by the Dissolution had
little immediate impact on Abbeydorney. Although the monastic land
became
secularised, the monks themselves were not dispersed. In fact the
abbot of Abbeydorney remained active for forty years after the
initial
closures took place and was stopped only in 1577 when he was shot
at Lixnaw Castle. The site of the monastery is now used as a graveyard.
For centuries it has been customary for local families to bury
their dead within the confines of a medieval abbey or friary:
Abbeydorney
is a notorious example. The remains of the old cloister garth are
weighted down with relatively modern tombs and monuments. The
chief
remnant of the monastery is the abbey church with a projecting
western tower, all of which dates from the fifteenth century.
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