About
Just north of Glanworth village in north Cork, whose name recalls a glen of yew trees, the Dominican friary known as Rock Abbey, or the Priory of the Holy Cross, was founded in 1475 under the patronage of the great Norman families of the area. In its day it had a church with a belfry, a cloister, a dormitory and a cemetery on ten acres, one of them walled, until it was suppressed by 1541. The church survives: a chancel and a nave divided by a four-storey tower carried on four tall pointed arches, with an east window of four round-headed lights in switchline tracery returned from a nearby church, a piscina with a credence shelf, and three restored windows in the chancel's south wall. The cloister, dormitory and hall were pulled down in the 19th century, by local account to build the New Line road that runs beside the friary. Reviewers find it plain but well kept, with views of Glanworth's bridge and village.
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.
A small pedestrian gate from the roadside and a grass slope up to the church; uneven ground inside. The tower's floors are gone. No toilets.
Glanworth Castle, 400 m south across the River Funshion, is a separate monument and not an OPW site.
Photo: Rock Abbey at Glanworth from the road, its tower rising between the nave and the traceried east gable. JohnArmagh, CC BY-SA 3.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GlanworthAbbey.jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.
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