Chocolate box thatched houses and wisteria are part of our shared heritage

The last of the summer wisteria? … spotted in Adare at the weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

When I was in Cambridge earlier this month, I thought I had seen the last of the wisteria this summer in Chapel Court when I visited Sidney Sussex College.

There were just some shots of blue and light purple in the flowers and bright foliage dripping from the vines along the wall throughout Chapel Court, Hall Court and Cloister Court, and dangling over into Sidney Street.

I have a particular fondness for the wisteria in Sidney Sussex. In May and June, wisteria covers college walls, pretty cottages, terraced houses, and even appears on student accommodation throughout Cambridge. But I thought I had seen the last of wisteria this summer in Cambridge earlier this month on my way to and from the USPG conference in High Leigh in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire.

Then, during the weekend, as I strolled through the Town Park in Adare, Co Limerick, opposite the Heritage Centre on the Main Street, my eyes were drawn to some flowering wisteria that has survived into these final days of wisteria, I reminder of the promises of summer from six or seven weeks ago – and what a summer it has been.

The stones and the bridge at the Washing Pool in Adare, which dates back to the 19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The park has a number of beautiful walks and pathways, and a thatched gazebo that is attractive for families on summer weekends and that is probably a popular location too for pretty wedding photographs.

At one of the entrances to the park, the ‘Washing Pool’ or Linn Níocháin is formed by a tributary stream of the River Maigue, the Droichidin, as it flows under a two-arched bridge.

In the past, groups of women gathered here regularly to wash their clothes and talk about village life. Before the days of washing machines, washing powder and detergents, these women did their washing on spittle stones in the stream bed or by pounding the clothes with wooden washing bats or beetles.

The Washing Pool was also a watering place for horses.

The thatched wooden gazebo in the Town Park in Adare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The land for the town park and the thatched wooden gazebo were presented to the town of Adare by the Dunraven family of Adare Manor in 1975, and an avenue of chestnut trees that once led up to Adare Manor is now part of the park.

The pool, dating back over 200 years, was restored and the banks paved by Limerick County Council and the Adare Tidy Towns Association during European Architectural Year in 1975.

A thatched house with a wicker porch on the Main Street in Adare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

But it seems the tourists come to Adare mainly to see the thatched houses that line the south side of the Main Street. They are picturesque in a picture-postcard or chocolate-box type of way, and many of those tourists must think these are stereotypical Irish thatched cottages.

But, of course, few of these are cottages. Today, many of them are boutique shops and highly-recommended restaurants. But they were built as family homes, they are often two-storeyed, and as I walked along the Main Street at the weekend I imagined that most of these thatched houses would fit more perfectly in Grantchester or Trumpington than on a small-holding with subsistence farming in 19tth century remote, rural and poverty-stricken Ireland.

The original thatched houses in Adare were built in the 1820s as homes for people employed on the Earl of Dunraven’s estate, on the farm, in the Manor House or in the cigarette factory.

For a short time, tobacco was cultivated as a crop on the Adare estate as part of the economic plans of the 4th earl of Dunraven, who also built a factory, the Adare Cigarette Company, on his estate. The firm once employed about 70 people in grading the tobacco leaves in the factory in Adare.

So these thatched houses have an urban rather than a rural context for their story over the generations.

On Saturday [28 July 2018], the Guardian ran a feature on thatched houses in England. Readers were tantalised by the opportunity to get the ‘chocolate box’ look with traditional properties from Devon to Suffolk.

They ranged in price from £265,000 for a one-bedroom semi-detached cottage with an unusual thatched catslide roof is on the edge of a village three miles south-west of Andover, in Hampshire, or £295,000 Fleur De Ley, a former public house dating back to the 1700s and now a four-bedroom cottage in Clifton Hampden, a village near the market town of Abingdon, eight miles from Oxford.

£850,000 could buy Foxgloves in Longthorpe in Cambridgeshire, a village two miles from Peterborough. Foxgloves can genuinely claim to be a ‘chocolate box’ property – a photograph of the four-bedroom Grade II listed house actually graced some Cadbury’s chocolate boxes 40 years ago.

All of these houses could sit easily into Grantchester or Trumpington, as could any of the thatched houses in Adare. There is a deeper, shared culture that brings these two islands together than is expressed in the narrow nationalism of Brexiteers or those who wrap the green flag around themselves far too loudly.

Foxgloves in Longthorpe in Cambridgeshire is a ‘chocolate box’ property … it graced a Cadbury chocolate box 40 years ago (Photograph: Savills/The Guardian)

Corcomroe Abbey: the Cistercians’ fertile abbey in the barren Burren

Corcomroe Abbey stands on the edge of the Burren, about 7 km east of Ballyvaughan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

During my visit to the Burrren last weekend, my postings from Kilfenora Cathedral, Ballyvaughan and other places in Co Clare attracted strong recommendations that I should also visit Corcomroe Abbey.

I put the abbey on my to-do list, forgetting that I had visited Corcomroe four years ago. But during the past week I came across my notes from that visit, and the photographs I had taken.

Corcomroe Abbey stands on the edge of the Burren, at the end of a road about 800 meters east of the village of Bellharbour, in a valley about 7 km east of Ballyvaughan.

Corcomroe was founded for Cistercian monks between 1195 and 1210 as a daughter house of Inisloughnaght Abbey, Co Tipperary. It was once known as Sancta Maria de Petra Fertilis (Saint Mary of the Fertile Rock), a reference to the Burren rocks and soil. Although there was no stream at the site, several wells probably provided water to the monastery.

Evidence of earlier religious settlements is found nearby in the deserted churches at Oughtmana, suggesting a long history of church life in the valley.

Corcomroe Abbey was founded by the O’Briens of Thomond and was once known as ‘Sancta Maria de Petra Fertilis,’ ‘Saint Mary of the Fertile Rock’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Some accounts say the abbey was founded by Donal Mór Ua Briain (Donald O’Brien), the patron of a number of other religious foundations in Thomond, who died in 1194. He was also involved in the foundation of other important churches in Thomond, including Saint Flannan’s Cathedral, Killaloe, Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, and Holy Cross Abbey, Co Tipperary.

Other accounts say Corcomore Abbey was founded by his successor Donough Cairbreach. Architectural evidence indicates the abbey was founded around 1205-1210.

Another local legend says the building was commissioned later by King Conor na Siudane Ua Briain, and that he executed the five masons who completed the abbey to prevent them from building a rival masterpiece elsewhere.

However, the documentary evidence for Corcomroe Abbey is scanty. Because the Cistercians did not engage in extensive pastoral work, few traditions relating to the abbey were maintained in local folklore.

The double sedilia in the chancel at Corcomroe Abbey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The church was built of local limestone in the early 13th century and consists of a nave with an aisle on the south side. There may have been plans to build a similar aisle on the north side of the nave, but this was never completed, perhaps because funds were insufficient. Nothing remains of the cloister arcade, but this abbey was once a magnificent example of the best architecture of its time.

Cistercians were traditionally divided into two parts, the chancel and the nave, separated by a screen. This church is cruciform in plan although the north and south transepts are quite short. There was a chapel in each transept, and a thick nearly-central wall topped by a small tower, built probably in the 14th to 16th century.

At the east end of the church, the chancel has a decorated ribbed vault in the Romanesque style and is lit by three tall lancet windows, with a single lancet window above

The tomb niche with the effigy of Conor O’Brien, King of Thomond, who died in 1268 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The chancel has a highly decorated double sedilia and a tomb niche with the effigy of Conor O’Brien, King of Thomond, who died in 1268, a descendant of the founders and benefactors of the abbey.

Conor O’Brien, or Conor na Siudane Ua Briain, King of Thomond, fought a battle at Siudáine, close to Corcomroe, in 1268. On the battlefield, he was surprised by Conor Carrach O’Loughlain and slain with many of his retainers. His body was retrieved and was buried at Corcomroe by the monks. His tomb is one of the few remaining examples of the tomb an Irish Chieftain. The effigy is believed to be a copy of the figure at Roscommon Friary of Felim O’Conor, who died in 1265.

Where the chancel and transepts meet, several crossing arches feature capitals with carvings of human masks and dragons’ heads and flowers, including poppies, lily-of-the valleys and lotus leaves.

The capitals at the crossing are with carved of human faces (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The west gable has two tall lancet windows over a pointed-arch door.

In 1226, a papal mandate addressed to the Bishop of Kilfenora and the Abbot of Corcomroe shows that the abbey was integrated into the Cistercian network at that time and that the abbot was an important functionary in the local church.

The relationship with the mother-house at Inislounaght came to an end in 1228, and Corcomroe became subject to Furness Abbey in Lancashire. This was part of a move among Cistercians to bring the order’s more remote houses in Ireland under closer control.

In 1227, 1280 and 1287 there were complaints that the abbot of Corcomroe had failed to appear at the Cistercian General Chapter at Citeaux for a long time.

The chancel has decorated ribbed vaulting in the Romanesque style (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In another battle nearby in 1317, involving feuding between the O’Briens and their allies, the abbey was used as a barracks by Dermot O’Brien.

By the end of the 14th century, tis part of the Burren was held by a branch of the O’Cahans (O’Kane or Keane) from Derry, and they became stewards of the abbey lands.

Papal letters in the early 15th century refer to issues around appointments at Kilfenora and Killilagh, and John, the Abbot of Corcomore, became Bishop of Kilmacduagh in 1419.

A figure of a mediaeval bishop with mitre and crozier in the church ruins (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Papal correspondence became more frequent after this time, dealing mainly with local abuses of order, rules notably the ban against marriage. Church dynasties had become quite common in Ireland at that time, and were also present at Corcomroe. Through the 15th century, the abbey and several parishes were controlled by the Tierney family.

The custom of hereditary abbots and the use of abbey resources and lands by powerful families brought about a decline in the fortunes of monasteries. The number of monks fell, monastic churches were reduced in size, and the church in Corcomroe was shortened by 13 meters in the 15th century. There is also evidence that suggests that at the time the monks' dormitory had fallen into disuse.

With the dissolution of the monastic houses at the Reformation, Corcomore Abbey and its lands were granted in 1554 to Murrough O’Brien, Earl of Thomond. For some time, the monks tried to continue to tend the fields and to maintain their presence in the area.

Titular abbots continued to be appointed for almost a century after the Reformation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daniel O’Griffy of Dysert O’Dea was appointed the ‘commendatory abbot’ or titular abbot of Corcomroe in 1625. John O’Dea, a monk of Salamanca, was appointed the last titular abbot in 1628.

The property is last mentioned in the O’Brien family papers in 1702, when they were mortgaged by William O’Brien (1662-1719) to Donat O’Brien of Dromoland.

A late addition is the neo-classical tomb of ‘O’Loughlin King of the Burren Family Tomb,’ dating from the late 18th or early 19th century. It is in the floor in front of the niche with Conor O’Brien’s tomb.

The church is largely intact, but few traces remain of the domestic buildings. Parts of the high wall surrounding the five acre monastery precinct can still be seen.

Tthe Office of Public Works acquired the ruins in 1879, and today Corcomore Abbey is a popular place to visit on day tours through the Burren.

Corcomroe Abbey was brought back to life several years ago with a Dawn Mass on Easter morning initiated by the late John O’Donoghue, author of Anam Cara.

The lancet windows at the East End of the chancel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)