Carlingford Dominican Friary

At the southern edge of Carlingford, beside the Dundalk road under Slieve Foy, stand the ruins of the Dominican friary founded in 1305 under Richard Óg de Burgh, second Earl of Ulster, the Red Earl, whose daughter Elizabeth married Robert the Bruce. Dedicated to St Malachy, the church is 38 metres long, its nave and chancel divided by a central bell tower added in the fourteenth century. In 1423 two crenellated towers were raised on the west gable, giving the church a fortified look, and a murder hole still guards the west doorway; a later tower stands at the end of the east range. The friars stayed until the Dissolution of 1539. Murrough 'the Burner' O'Brien used the buildings as a barracks in the 1650s, the Dominicans returned under a papal decree of 1678 and left for Dundalk in 1767, after which the church served as a hall, a barracks and a handball alley. The ruin is free and unstaffed, entered by a gravel path through its lawned grounds.