Founded 1257

The Dominicans arrived in Athy in 1253 or 1257 (the date is in some doubt). They settled on the eastern bank of the Barrow, first in thatched huts of wood and clay, later in a stone priory and church dedicated to St Peter Martyr, one of the earliest saints of the Order. Till the end of the century they were able to lead a fairly normal life in Athy for it was the golden age of Norman Ireland.

In the new century the local Irish clans began to press more strongly against this outpost on the very edges of Anglo-Norman settlement. There were plans to build a small fortress in Athy, but perhaps this was never done. Athy was burned in 1305 and again four times before the end of the century. The area became a sort of battlefield. The lord deputy himself came along in 1314 and killed about 800 of the O’Mores and their allies. Two years later, “in a cold year of famine and plague,” Edward Bruce with his Scottish invaders pillaged Castledermot, Athy and Reban. At Castledermot the Franciscans saw their friary destroyed, their vestments, books and furniture carried away by the Scots. The Anglo-Normans opposed this mighty army near Ardscull but failed to defeat them. Although Bruce held the field there were severe losses on both sides. Bruce, the self-styled king of Ireland, then crossed the ford into Laois and Offaly before turning north for Ulster and an early death at Faughart near Dundalk. He was the brother of the great Robert Bruce, king of Scotland.

The 14^th century was a disastrous time for the Anglo-Normans. The Black Death or bubonic plague, brought to Ireland by rats in 1347, carried off a quarter of the population in cities and towns. There were six outbreaks of the disease in the space of 40 years. By 1382, half the Anglo-Norman population had been carried off by pestilence and their hold over the countryside had greatly weakened. Few details about the Dominicans survive the wreck of time. At this time the Dominicans in Ireland were eager for independence from the English province. This reflected a national feeling shared by many Anglo-Norman leaders who were famously becoming more Irish than the Irish themselves. The Dominicans may have had Norman names, but their work was among the ‘mere Irish’: they had a foot in both camps. Meanwhile the military struggle between the Norman colonists and the dispossessed Irish went on. O’More and O’Dempsey were defeated near Kilkea Castle in 1414. Soon after, the lord lieutenant repaired the bridge at Athy and put a new tower on it, and a “great fortification.” Yet the Irish encroached again until 1420 when the viceroy came to the Red Ford in Athy where he slew “many of the kin and terrible army of O’More; and the sun stood still for three hours until the English had destroyed the Irish.”

During the 1300s there were many among the colonists who claimed it was no sin to kill and Irishman. In 1366, one of the many Statutes of Kilkenny forbade friars to admit Irish novices. Even if some within the Pale followed this ruling, there had been a change of heart a century later when two Dominicans of Athy had definitely Irish names.

So far as the Dominicans were concerned, the Observant Reform in Ireland was almost entirely confined to Connacht where it began in 1426 with the foundation of a new priory at Portumna.Granted, the movement started at Longford in precisely the same year, but it never flourished in Leinster as it did beyond the Shannon. So far as Athy is concerned there is little more than a suggestion that they were interested.