Buttevant Friary County Cork

According to the tradition of the Observant Franciscans the proto-friary of the Irish Province of the Order, dedicated to St. Nicholas, was founded at Youghal by Maurice Fitz Gerald in 1224. The Irish Province of the Franciscans was formally erected at the general chapter of Assisi in 1230. The same chapter also appointed Richard of Ingworth as first minister provincial who appears to have taken up residence in Youghal. It was probably from this house that an important early friary, dedicated to St. Thomas à Becket, was established at Buttevant. It was to be the only Franciscan house in North Cork. The Annals of the Four Masters record that it was founded and endowed in 1251 by David Óg de Barry. The townland of Lagfrancis was assigned as the glebe for its mensa.

By 1324 Buttevant friary consisted of a community of Irish and Anglo-Norman friars and was sufficiently important to maintain its own studium, or house of studies. Racial tensions, however, troubled the community. In 1327 the commission established by Pope John XXII in 1317 to investigate the Irish Province of the Order determined the transfer of the Gaelic lector from Buttevant to one of its Gaelic friaries. In 1325, the general chapter of the Order, held at Lyons, was informed that the obedience of the friary of St. Thomas at Buttevant had been transferred to the recently erected custody of Cork, thereby taking the house out of Irish control and subjecting it to that of the Anglo-Norman custody of Cork.