Jubilee Pilgrimage of Hope, June 15th, 2025
Monaincha, Cronan Pastoral Area
What a delight it is to be here in Monaincha today for this Jubilee Pilgrimage of Hope. Each pastoral area was encouraged to nominate a sacred site to have a pilgrimage and designate as a nominated location for a plenary indulgence that is always associated with the Jubilee Year. What a joy it is to be in this sacred place where the echoes of prayer reverberate since the 7th century back to the time of St. Cronan, around the lake and in the Abbey walls.
In listening to the history of this sacred location rooted in the St. Cronan tradition of the 7thcentury – I’m conscious of the great missionary and pastoral work of the Augustinians from the 1100’s.
While there was much focus on the Jesuit charism and tradition while Francis was pope – it is now the turn of the Augustinians with Leo taking over at the head of the barque of Peter.
Augustinian Tradition in Killaloe
In many locations around the diocese we see the trace of the work of the Augustinians who we in key and strategic places around Killaloe. Killone Abbey, Clare Abbey, Canon Island in the Shannon Estuary, Lorrha. The Augustinians or the Canons regular as they were called did amazing work in consolidating the Patrician faith that followed the golden age of the saints and scholars and prior to the diocesan system being set up.
The were situated in key locations and either people came to them from far and wide in their localities to be catechised, to pray and to celebrate the sacraments and live the faith. In a time of decline in religious practice and attendance at Mass in so many parishes and with such a decline in priests available, 31 parishes having no resident priest – maybe the future may be a return to something similar to the monastic system with outreach form centres of excellence in the religious sphere. Who knows, but certainly something to ponder on this special occasion in the very scared and special place.
Celebration of Trinity
On this great feast day we celebrate the feast of God as revealed to us as Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Trinity could be regarded as a complex theological reality or simply as something in which we live and move and have our being. Like the air we breathe. Or the water we swim in!
We pray to the Trinity so often unconsciously. When we bless ourselves. Any time we honour the sign of the Cross. When we pass by a Church, a graveyard, a holy place of pilgrimage like this.
All our prayers are utterly Trinitarian. We pray to God, through Jesus and in the Holy Spirit.
The Trinity – Patrick Kavanagh
I love the words of Patrick Kavanagh from his epic poem the great hunger that captures in his usual earthy way the meaning of the Trinity for the ordinary person farming the land…
“Yet sometimes when the sun shines through a gap
These men know God the Father in a tree
The Holy Spirit is the rising sap, And Christ will be the green leaves
That will come
At Easter from the sealed and guarded tomb”
On this great feast of the Trinity we celebrate that in the great doxology, Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. Amen!
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Background History to Monaincha from various elements of research
Monaincha
This place of pilgrimage has been described by local people as ‘Tipperary’s best kept secret’ and it is hard not to see why. This site seems to have been forgotten by the modern world and exists in pure solitude in an idyllic setting.
The abbey was originally located in the now drained Lough Cre which must have made it even more of an impressive sight as you approached it by boat. The island is called ‘Inis na mBeo’ which is translated as the ‘island of the living’.
Legends surround the former Lough, including one which says that no women could ever set foot in the water or cross it without dying instantly – this was apparently put to the test with cats and dogs. Another legend surrounds the name of the island and says that it is impossible to die while on this island – when there you are immortal.
There was more than one island in the Lough and a second island had a smaller church on it which is now, unfortunately, destroyed. The Augustinians founded the present abbey in 1140 but there was another monastery at the site which was associated with Aghaboe Abbey in the 6th century and later with St Cronan in the 7th century which is located in Roscrea town.
Before the Augustinians arrived the site was dedicated to St Hilary but they changed this to its present dedication of St Mary. The Augustinians left the site in 1485 and little alterations to the site have been made leaving it in its current state. Some reconstruction has been done to the site in the 19th century which was carried out improperly. For example, the windows of the church have not been replace correctly, leaving them misaligned.
Detail of the Church
Church – As with all pre-modern churches the church is orientated E-W and consists of a small nave with a chancel and priest’s quarters. The entrance to the nave is through a decorated Romanesque doorway with chevron designs and scrollwork and roll-mouldings with decorated capitals. Many later, 17th, 18th, and 19th century graves are located in and around the church including a tomb in the priest’s chambers. The priest’s chambers are well preserved on the ground level with an impressive barrel vault ceiling.
High Cross
A High Cross is Located 7m from the church on its East face. The original location of the cross at the site is unknown and was placed here in modern times. The shaft of the cross is missing and has been replaced with concrete. The head of the cross depicts Jesus being crucified on its W face – Jesus wears a long robe but his head and hands are missing.
This is a truly beautiful site and has been visited for centuries as the graffiti on the trees (which must rival the church in age) shows.
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Monaincha Abbey is situated on what used to be an island in a bog. The principal remains are of a church with Romanesque features and later Gothic insertions and additions.
The nave and chancel have a finely decorated 12th-century west doorway and chancel arch constructed in a warm sandstone. The entrance to the nave is through a decorated Romanesque doorway with chevron design and scroll work and roll decoration. The monastery experienced a revival in the 12th century when it became Augustinian.
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We read in a 13th-century Norwegian text:
There is still another quite extensive lake that is called Logri. In that lake is an islet inhabited by men who live a celibate life and may be called, as one likes, either monks or hermits; they live there in such numbers that they fill the island, though at times they are fewer. It is said concerning this isle that it is healthful and quite free from diseases, so that people grow aged more slowly there than elsewhere in the land. But when one does grow very old and sickly and can see the end of the days allotted by the Lord, he has to be carried to some place on the mainland to die; for no one can die of disease on the island. One may sicken and suffer there, but his spirit cannot depart from the body before he has been removed from the island.
In his 1188 text Topographia Hibernica, historian Gerald of Wales describes the legend of the church and islands:
Chapter IV: Of two islands, in one of which no one dies, and in the other, no animal of the female sex enters. There is a lake in the northern parts of Munster, containing two islands, one large, the other small. In the larger island there is a church held in great veneration from the earliest times; the smaller island contains a chapel, which is devoutly served by a few celibates, called Heaven-worshippers, or Godworshippers. No woman, nor any animal of the female sex, could ever enter the larger island without instant death. This has been often proved by dogs and cats, and other animals, of the female sex, which, having been carried over for sake of the experiment, immediately expired. It is an extraordinary fact, that while male birds perch on the bushes on all parts of the island in great numbers, the female birds with whom they pair, fly back, avoiding the island from some natural instinct of its qualities, as if it were infested with the plague. In the smaller island no one ever dies, was ever known to die, or could die a natural death. It is consequently called the Isle of the Living. Notwithstanding, its inhabitants are sometimes severely afflicted with mortal diseases. and languish in misery till life is nearly exhausted. But when no hope remains, all expectation of the powers of life being restored becomes extinct, and they are reduced by their increasing malady to such a degree of suffering that they would rather die than live a life of death, the natives cause themselves to be ferried over in a boat to the larger island, where they breathe their last as soon as they touch the land. I have thought it right to notice this because it is mentioned in the first pages of the Scholastic History, which treats of the inhabitants of islands of this description. The tree of the sun is also there spoken of, concerning which king Alexander writes to Aristotle, that whoever eats of the fruit prolongs his life to an immense period.
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