The Grace Dieu Abbey is an Augustinian abbey in County Dublin, Ireland. It was founded about 1190 by John Comyn to house an order of nuns, the Sisters of St. Augustine. It derived most of its income from lands at Lusk and Swords, County Dublin. Over the centuries it became an establishment for the daughters of the Anglo-Irish landowners of the Pale, and no doubt for this reason at the Dissolution of the Monasteries there were pleas for its continuance. Nonetheless it was suppressed in 1541 and acquired by Patrick Barnewall (Solicitor General). Patrick's son Sir Christopher Barnewall built Turvey House nearby, reputedly from the stones of Grace Dieu, of which only ruins survive. Turvey House itself was demolished in 1987.
Famous quotes containing the words grace and/or abbey:
“But the mark of American merit in painting, in sculpture, in poetry, in fiction, in eloquence, seems to be a certain grace without grandeur, and itself not new but derivative; a vase of fair outline, but empty,—which whoso sees, may fill with what wit and character is in him, but which does not, like the charged cloud, overflow with terrible beauty, and emit lightnings on all beholders.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The Abbey always reminds me of that old toast, “Above lofty timbers, the walls around are bare, echoing to our laughter, as though the dead were there.””
—Garrett Fort (1900–1945)