Black Abbey

The Dominican Priory of the Holy Trinity, known as 'the Black Abbey', was founded by the younger William Marshal (d. 1231) in 1225 (Carrigan 1905, Vol. 3, 176-190; Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 226; Farrelly et.al. 1993, 16). The medieval church was a large T-plan structure with an aisled nave; its surviving remains include the nave with a S aisle, the S transept, crossing tower (1527) and the 15th-century W tower. An impressive Decorated-style five-light window, the largest of its kind in Ireland, fills almost the entire S gable of the S transept. The chancel was demolished in 1775 and it, along with the overall plan of the church and its cloisters, is depicted as ruinous on the 1758 John Rocque map of Kilkenny. The E end of the chancel and a section of its tiled floor were recorded in excavations by Frank Ryan in 2000 (Ryan 2000, unpublished; 2002) and parts of its N and S walls and a mortared floor level were unearthed in 1976 in excavations by Raghnall O Floinn (Cahill and Sikora 2011, vol. 2, 345–7). The claustral buildings, situated to the N of the church, were described in 1540 as including a church, belfry, dormitory, chapter house, ‘castle’ over gate, granary, king’s chamber, prior’s chamber, ‘small castle’, toft and Will Dowlaghe’s chamber (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 226). Geophysical survey in the prior’s garden (between the River Breagagh and the N side of the church) identified parts of the cloister and N range as well as other structures (Leigh 2004). An upstanding section of a reconstructed medieval window, part of the W range, is present beside the River Breagagh. The church was set within a large precinct that extended from Blackmill street in the W, where sections of its precinct wall foundations have been discovered in excavations (Reid 1996, unpublished; 1997; Ryan 2000, unpublished; 2002) as far as the City Wall in the W, the Breagagh in the north and probably as far as the Tilbury Tower in the S (Ó Drisceoil 2019, unpublished). As was typical for the Dominicans they located their house outside of the City Walls, within its own walled enclosure.

A series of monumental slabs and stone coffins, the earliest dating from the 13th century, are to be found within the precincts of the church, most located in the yard outside the S transept (Bradley 1980). The S transept was integrated into the present church when the building was restored for worship in the 19th century, along with the 13th-century nave and aisle, and the 16th-century tower. A 14th-century limestone figure of St Catherine of Alexandria – protectress of the Dominican order – is to be seen in the priory museum and a 15th-century sculpted representation of the Trinity, carved in alabaster, discovered during the restoration work of the early 19th century, is now kept in a glass case attached to the S wall of the S transept. The Black Abbey is the only one of the medieval houses still in the possession of the Dominican Order.