Archaeology 360: Clontuskert Augustinian Friary, Co. Galway
Start at the east window from outside and you're looking at tracery that isn't all original - the gable it sits in came down in 1918, and what's there today is a 1970s rebuild using whatever pieces of the old window could be salvaged from the rubble, patched out with new stone where they couldn't. Circle round for the overview from the south-east and then the south-west and you get the shape of the place: an Augustinian priory of St Mary, founded here in the late 12th century on ground that already had a monastic settlement going back to around 800 AD (credited to a St Baedán) - though sources disagree on who founded the priory itself, some crediting the Ó Ceallaigh family, others Turlough O'Connor, King of Connacht. The west doorway is the headline act: four orders of carving finished in 1471, inscribed with the names of Matthew, Bishop of Clonfert, and Patrick O'Naughton, canon of the house, and crowded with St Michael weighing souls, Saints Augustine, Catheri...