The site, as we have remarked, was secluded, at some distance even from any village, and far from the more frequented roads.  In process of time the family of the Nugents became lords of the manor, but they were not less friendly to the religious than the former proprietors.  Indeed, so devoted were they to the Order, that, at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, Multifarnham would have shared the common fate, had they not again and again repurchased it from those to whom it had been sold by Henry.  Even during the reign of Elizabeth it was protected by the same family.  But the day of suffering was even then approaching.  In the October of the year 1601, a detachment of English soldiers was sent from Dublin by Lord Mountjoy, to destroy the convent which had been so long spared.  The friars were seized and imprisoned, the monastery pillaged; and the soldiers, disappointed in their hope of a rich booty, wreaked their vengeance by setting fire to the sacred pile.

The Convent of Kilcrea was another sequestered spot.  It was founded in the fifteenth century, by the MacCarthys, under the invocation of St. Brigid.  The richness and magnificence of the church, its graceful bell-tower, carved windows, and marble ornaments, showed both the generosity and the taste of the Lord Muskerry.  Cormac was interred here in 1495; and many noble families, having made it their place of sepulture, protected the church for the sake of their ancestral tombs.

Nor was the Monastery of Timoleague less celebrated.  The honour of its foundation is disputed, as well as the exact date; but as the tombs of the MacCarthys, the O’Donovans, O’Heas, and De Courcys, are in its choir, we may suppose that all had a share in the erection or adornment of this stately church.  One of the De Courcy family, Edmund, Bishop of Ross, himself a Franciscan friar, rebuilt the bell-tower, which rises to a height of seventy feet, as well as the dormitory, infirmary, and library.  At his death, in 1548, he bequeathed many valuable books, altar-plate, &c., to his brethren.

The history of the establishment of the Order at Donegal is amusing enough, and very characteristic of the customs of the age.  In the year 1474 the Franciscans were holding a general chapter in their convent near Tuam.  In the midst of their deliberations, however, they were unexpectedly interrupted by the arrival of the Lady Nuala O’Connor, daughter of the noble O’Connor Faly, and wife of the powerful chieftain, Hugh O’Donnell.  She was attended by a brilliant escort, and came for no other purpose than to present her humble petition to the assembled fathers, for the establishment of their Order in the principality of Tir-Connell.  After some deliberation, the Provincial informed her that her request could not be complied with at present, but that at a future period the friars would most willingly second her pious design.  The Lady Nuala, however, had a woman’s will, and a spirit of religious fervour to animate