The Cistercian Abbey at Newry
Founded in 1153, possibly on the site of an earlier Benedictine monastery, the Cistercian abbey at Newry had come under the patronage of Muirtchertach McLochlainn, king of Cenél Eógain and high-king of Ireland by 1157. In that year MacLochlainn confirmed lands to the abbey and assured the monks of his protection.
Details of the subsequent development of the abbey are scarce. The Annals of the Four Masters report that the monastery at Newry was burned in 1162 with ‘all its furniture and books, and also the yew tree which Patrick himself had planted’.
As part of Anglo-Norman consolidation in Ulster, the abbey received a charter from Hugh de Lacy, earl of Ulster, in 1237 confirming Muirtchertach McLochlainn’s earlier charter. In 1373, some of the abbey’s estates were taken into the king’s hand as the abbey was regarded as ‘mere Irish’ and was allegedly using its profits to aid Irish recovery in the area.
By the 15th century, the abbey was coming under pressure from local Gaelic lords, particularly the Magennises. In 1428, part of its estates was occupied by the local Irish including the O’Hanlons, MacElroys and Magennises. Glasney Magennis, who was abbot of the monastery, was killed in 1526, by Donal Magennis and his kinsmen.
The abbey at Newry was initially exempt from the dissolution of the monasteries, being converted in 1538, at the request of Sir Arthur Magennis to a collegiate church for secular clergy. John Prowle, the last abbot, became warden. In 1548, however, the abbey was surrendered to the Crown. An inquisition, carried out in 1549, records the former abbey buildings at Newry as comprising a ‘college, church, steeple and cemetery, chapter house, dormitory and hall’.
The surviving buildings and estates of the former abbey were granted by Edward VI to Sir Nicholas Bagenal, an English settler from Staffordshire, in 1552.
