Mungret Churches

PricingFreeFree for all visitors

Free entry for everyone

Entry

Free for everyone

Pricing details

Free for everyone; an open-air monument with no staff, tickets or booking. No membership card is needed.

ParkingNo car park

Arrive on foot, by bike or by public transport.

Parking details

OPW names no car park or directions; the churches stand beside a lane running south from the Mungret Road (R859). A playground car park in Mungret Park, about 300 m south-west across the road, is not named by OPW. No bus service is named.

Driving pin: the lane at the north-east corner of the old graveyard, 43 m from OPW's own pin.

About

Four kilometres south-west of Limerick city, three ruined churches mark the monastery St Nessan founded at Mungret before 551, said to have been planned for six churches and fifteen hundred monks and one of the most important early Christian houses in north Munster. In 908 Cormac mac Cuilennáin, king of Munster, gave it three ounces of gold and a satin chasuble; it was plundered by Vikings at least four times and destroyed in 1107, and in 1179 it passed to the bishops of Limerick, becoming a manor and borough with its own market. The largest building, known as Mungret Abbey, has a 13th-century chancel and a 15th-century tower at the west end where the priests lived, with a belfry whose bell is remembered as the Bell of Mungret. Nearby, Old Mungret Church has a tall narrow east window, and St Nessan's, to the north, a simple steep-gabled church with a lintelled doorway, is thought to be the oldest of the three. The graveyard around them is still in use.

Open in daylightFrom OPW Heritage Ireland's published times

Open any reasonable time in daylight

Opening times may change at short notice.

An unguided open-air national monument in OPW's care with no staff and no facilities. OPW warns that care and caution should be kept throughout a visit to its unguided sites.

Three churches within about 120 m: Mungret Abbey and Old Mungret Church in the graveyard on the lane, St Nessan's just south of the Mungret Road. A visitor in 2019 found the abbey itself could not be entered.

A graveyard still in use with uneven ground between graves. No toilets.

Photo: Mungret Abbey's east gable and long nave with its 15th-century tower, above the old graveyard wall. JohnArmagh, Public domain. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MungretAbbey.jpg. Licence: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.