It is likely that the priory was further fortified when Carlingford was granted to Nicholas Bagenal in 1552, along with Newry and various other lands in the area. In a petition to Queen Elizabeth I in 1570 Bagenal, who was marshal of the queen’s army in Ireland, says that he built a castle at Carlingford. The castle referred to may be the eastern part of the surviving domestic range, which in all likelihood was built as a towerhouse. Whatever the case, after the defeat of the Irish in the Nine Years War (1593–1603) it would appear that the priory was no longer of military value. By 1613 the Franciscans, who were at the forefront of the Counter-Reformation surge in Ireland, had occupied the building. The town was the scene of battle in the Cromwellian war and during recent conservation work a cannon-ball was found on the battlements of the priory.

Under Charles II there was a relaxation of the laws restricting the practice of Catholicism and the Dominicans reappeared in Carlingford. In the 1670s they attempted to reclaim ownership of the priory from the Franciscans. The dispute was settled by St Oliver Plunkett, the presiding bishop, in favour of the Franciscans. Under Franciscan control, it became known as a friary, a designation still used by some. Not long after, in 1689, the Jacobite army, under the command of James II’s illegitimate son, the duke of Berwick, in retreat from the forces of William of

Orange, set fire to Newry and Carlingford. Extensive damage was done to the town and presumably the priory, since a visitor in 1703 described it as being an old chapel and monastery in ruins.

Over the subsequent decades it was utilised for a number of purposes, including as housing for local herring fishermen. We are told that in 1726 it was defaced by Mr William Stannus, who presumably used some of the masonry in the nearby Ghan House, which he was constructing as his family home at the time. In the nineteenth century the ruins were used as a handball court. Despite its physical deterioration, the priory remained an important symbol of Carlingford and its ruins continued to be represented on maps and to be the subject of paintings in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The chancel What remains today of the original priory is the shell of the nave and chancel divided by a tower, with ruins of domestic buildings approximately 20m to the south. These would have been the

Above left: Map of medieval Carlingford, showing the principal sites. The Dominican priory lies to the south of the town defences (Urban Archaeological Survey). Above right: Plan of Carlingford Dominican priory (from Urban Archaeological Survey, after Beth Cassidy). Above: Dramatic view of the church overlooked by Slieve Foy, the highest peak in the Carlingford Mountains (Chris Corlett).