About
On the picturesque shores of secluded Killala Bay, on the banks of the River Moy north of Ballina, lies one of the best preserved Franciscan monasteries in the country, and the tranquillity of the friary can still be felt today. Rosserk was founded around the 1440s for the friars of the Third Order of St Francis and burned in 1590 by Sir Richard Bingham, Governor of Connacht, in the reign of Elizabeth I. Designed in the late Irish Gothic style, the ruins still contain original features of the period, including a decorative double piscina and, on one of its pillars, a carving of a round tower, likely fashioned on the tower that still survives at Killala. A slender central tower rises between the church, with its high traceried gables, and the cloister ranges, whose upper floors can still be reached by their stairs for views over the estuary. The friary is free, unstaffed and open in daylight hours, with a small parking area at the end of the access road.
Open in daylightFrom OPW Heritage Ireland's published times
- Open any reasonable time in daylight
Opening times may change at short notice.
OPW says access is available during daylight hours; an unguided open-air national monument with no staff, no season and no facilities. OPW warns that care and caution should be kept throughout a visit to its unguided sites.
Uneven medieval ruins with stairs to the upper floors of the cloister ranges; the entrance is not wheelchair accessible by Google's reckoning. No toilets, cafe or shop.
Photo: Rosserk Friary from the south-east, its slender central tower rising between the church and the high gables of the domestic ranges. Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rosserk_Friary_SE_2013_09_14.jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.
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