Ross Errilly Friary

The Ross Errilly Friary (Irish: Mainistir Ros Oirialaigh, often anglicised in 18th & 19th century sources as Rosserelly) is a medieval Franciscan friary located about a mile to the northwest of Headford, County Galway, Ireland. It is a National Monument of Ireland and among the best-preserved medieval monastic sites in the country. Though usually referred to by locals as "Ross Abbey," this is not technically correct as the community never had an abbot.

The church and bell tower are to the south of a small but well preserved central cloister and domestic buildings are to the north. Amongst these are a kitchen (equipped with an oven and a water tank for live fish), a bake house, and a refectory or dining area. The dormitories are on the upper levels. One unusual feature is a second courtyard or cloister, built to accommodate the friary's growing population.

Like many other abandoned Christian sites in Ireland, Ross Errilly has continued to be used as a burial ground by area residents. In addition to tombs that date from the friary's active period, many graves dating from the 18th through 20th centuries can be found inside the church walls. In some cases, tombstones comprise the floors of walkways and crawlspaces.

Both Luke Wadding and the Four Masters (who refer to Ross Errilly in their Annals as Ros-Oirbhealagh) record that the abbey was founded in 1351, but this date has been called into question by numerous historians. Architectural cues and documentary evidence have given rise to a modern consensus that the friary was founded sometime in the middle of the 15th century, perhaps around 1460. The earliest existing documentary evidence however comes from a reference to the friary in the will of Galway man John Blake, son of Henry, who bequeathed the sum of 40 pence to the friary in 1469 but on the other hand some facts in support of the legend on the founding of the friary in 1351 cannot be overlooked. Firstly history tells us that there was a plague - the "Black Death" rampant in the country in 1348 and succeeding years, secondly, Archbishop MacHugh, who is credited with the foundation of the friary, was the metropolitan in Tuam, he was a franciscan and a native of the Headford area and he died of the plague in 1349 and it could have taken 3yrs to build the first part of the friary owing to the prevalence of the plague and the marshy condition of the soil. In any case, it is clear from the architectural evidence that any religious building that may have been on the site prior to that time was greatly expanded during the 15th century. Around 1473, a delegation of Franciscans from Ross Errilly went to Donegal at the request of the Tyrconnell clan and founded the Donegal Friary, where the Four Masters would later write their famous Annals.

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