Previous to the dissolution of the monasteries there were close on one hundred religious foundations in the province of Munster. Many of these were communities of importance; their ruins add much to the picturesqueness and interest of the province. In spite of the Reformation Ireland remained substantially a Roman Catholic country, and in many cases small bodies of monks faced the danger of persecution and returned in the seventeenth century to Ireland, leading a furtive existence amid the ruins of their former ... Read More