What began as an Anglo-Norman manor in the thirteenth century, established by the De Bermingham family, evolved into a Franciscan friary in 1325 when John De Bermingham invited the friars to build their chapel and dwellings in his town of ‘Totemoy’. The site, also known as Castro Petre de Mortoto after Peter de Bermingham, sits just south of a river that feeds into the Boyne, its strategic location making it valuable to successive occupants over the centuries.

Today’s remains present an intriguing puzzle of overlapping histories. The most prominent structure is a rectangular gatehouse, its walls standing to first floor level, built from undressed stones and mortar. A pointed archway entrance, complete with drawbridge attachments that once spanned a defensive moat, hints at the site’s later military role. The gatehouse features practical medieval details: bar slots for securing the entrance, a garderobe chute built into the eastern wall, and a recessed window on the western side. Surrounding earthworks reveal the foundations of various buildings, including what may have been a bawn wall enclosing the northern section, with grass-covered walls averaging four metres thick forming ghostly outlines of long-vanished structures.

By 1550, a survey recorded two castles at Monasteroris; one newly built and the other ruinous, alongside the burned and razed walls of the friary, testament to the site’s turbulent history. The complex appears to have been converted into a fortified stronghold of the O’Conors after the dissolution of the monasteries, adding another layer to this archaeological palimpsest. The nearby church ruins in the graveyard may be all that remains of the original Franciscan friary church, while the pile of collapsed masonry marked on old Ordnance Survey maps as a monastery might actually be remnants of the De Bermingham’s original castle, a reminder of how easily historical records can become muddled over time.