Founded in 1178 as a daughter house of Boyle Abbey, this religious settlement endured nearly four centuries of monastic life before its suppression in the late 16th century. The monastery’s history wasn’t without incident; in 1398, it suffered plundering at the hands of Niall Óg O’Neill, one of many challenges faced by religious houses during Ireland’s turbulent medieval period.

Today, visitors to the site will find only fragments of the original church structure, though these remains still tell a compelling story. The most substantial surviving portions include sections of the south wall, now serving as a boundary for the modern graveyard, and the western gable with its northern return, all standing approximately nine metres high. These ivy-covered walls, constructed from rubble and split stone with sandstone dressings, stretch 15.8 metres along the south side, whilst remnants of the north wall indicate the church once measured 8.39 metres in width. A splayed window opening can still be spotted in the upper section of the western gable, offering a glimpse of the building’s original fenestration.

Scattered throughout the cemetery are numerous carved stone fragments dating to the late 12th and early 13th centuries, silent witnesses to the abbey’s former architectural grandeur. When Dr. D. MacGettigan, Catholic Bishop of Raphoe from 1861 to 1870, oversaw the construction of the current graveyard wall in the 19th century, several of these medieval pieces were incorporated into the new structure, including three ornate capitals and a section of cusped tracery. These fragments, along with other moulded stones dispersed across the site, provide tantalising hints of the elaborate decoration that once adorned this important Cistercian foundation.