The history of Aghaboe Abbey, like many other Irish ecclesiastical sites, is a cycle of destruction and rebuilding. The original Abbey was founded in 576 by St Canice and served as a centre for learning and agriculture. It was plundered by Vikings in 913 and destroyed. It was over a hundred years later, in 1052 that it was finally rebuilt. It was burned yet again in 1116 and rebuilt in 1189, during this period it served as an Augustinian Priory. It was destroyed accidentally in 1346 in an attack on a Norman castle that used to be situated on the adjoining Motte by Dermot Fitzpatrick. The fire spread from the castle to the Abbey. The ruins that occupy the site at Aghaboe date from 1382 when the current structure was built by Finghin Fitzpatrick, Lord of Upper Ossory. He granted the Abbey to the Dominicans who remained there until the suppression of the monasteries in 1540.
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