Diarmait Mac Murchada - Church Builder

Church Builder

As king of Leinster, in 1140-70 Dermot commissioned Irish Romanesque churches and abbeys at:

  • Baltinglass - a Cistercian abbey (1148)
  • Glendalough
  • Ferns (his capital - St Mary's Abbey Augustinian Order)
  • Killeshin

He sponsored convents (nunneries) at Dublin (St Mary's, 1146), and in c.1151 two more at Aghade, County Carlow and at Kilculliheen near Waterford city.

He also sponsored the successful career of churchman St Lawrence O'Toole (Lorcan Ua Tuathail). He married O'Toole's half-sister Mor in 1153 and presided at the synod of Clane in 1161 when O'Toole was installed as archbishop of Dublin.

Read more about this topic:  Diarmait Mac Murchada

Famous quotes containing the words church and/or builder:

    This is what the Church is said to want, not party men, but sensible, temperate, sober, well-judging persons, to guide it through the channel of no-meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis of Aye and No.
    Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890)

    The structure was designed by an old sea captain who believed that the world would end in a flood. He built a home in the traditional shape of the Ark, inverted, with the roof forming the hull of the proposed vessel. The builder expected that the deluge would cause the house to topple and then reverse itself, floating away on its roof until it should land on some new Ararat.
    —For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)