1218 – Boyle Abbey, Co. Roscommon

Boyle Abbey was established in 1161 under the patronage of the MacDermott’s as a daughter house of Mellifont Abbey and was completed in 1218. It was the first Cistercian monastery founded in the province of Connacht and had a church, a rectangular cloister area, a chapter house for meetings, a kitchen and refectory as well as storehouses and a dormitory. It still retains decorated corbels and capitals that were probably carved by local masons. Today, only a small part of the cloister remains, along with parts of the church.