Between the middle of the fifteenth and early seventeenth centuries Muckross Abbey (or Oir Bhealach in Irish) was at the heart of the MacCarthy Mór lordship in Munster. Illustrating the importance of the abbey, numerous Gaelic lords are buried there (MacCarthys, O’Donoghues, and O’Sullivans, amongst others, as well as three important Gaelic poets from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: Séafraidh Ó Donnchadha (c.1620-78). Aodhagán Ó Rathaille (1670-1729), and Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin (1748-84).
During the tumultuous wars of the Elizabethan period and the seventeenth century the Franciscans friars were driven from the Abbey on various occasions. However, they kept returning, until the final expulsion by Cromwellian forces in the early 1650s. The Abbey and the friars thus witnessed the downfall and destruction of the Gaelic political world. Indeed, the Abbey is a remarkable testament to Gaelic Ireland. This is too often misunderstood and misrepresented as something archaic, static, or doomed, rather it was vibrant, dynamic, and, like all cultures, constantly changing. Gaelic Ireland may have been a peripheral area and poorer than England or France, but it still had deep connections with Europe, and was in contact with political, economic, religious, and intellectual developments there. Something interesting to think about when exploring the ruins of Muckross Abbey - or better Oir Bhealach.