ABBEYKNOCKMOY was founded in 1190 by Cathal Crovderg O’Conor, king of Connacht. The first monks arrived from Boyle and it seems that two or three decades passed before the community commenced construction of the permanent buildings. The abbey was situated on a particularly desolate terrain, lying in an open valley exposed to the winds sweeping eastwards from the Connemara Mountains. Much of the surrounding land was little more than heath or bog.

RUINS, CONG ABBEY, CO. GALWAY. -These magnificent monastic remains are justly considered unsurpassed in Ireland. For fifteen weary years they sheltered in their shadowy cloisters the unfortunate and unwarlike Roderick O'Conor, the last Ard Righ, or High King, of Ireland, whose weakness allowed his country to fall an easy prey to the wiles of the unscrupulous Henry II. Instead of battling for his crown at the head of his devoted army, as his gallant predecessors would have done, Roderick acquiesced in the sway of the Norman and took refuge from the world in the cell of an anchorite.

Cathal Crovderg O’Conor was buried in the grounds of the monastery, as was his wife seven years before. The abbey thereafter became a mausoleum for several generations of the O’Conner family. In 1240 the abbot was disgraced for allowing a woman to wash his head.

The Gaelic of Cong is Cunga, which means a neck of land, or isthmus. The abbey dates from the 12th century, and is situated between Loughs Mask and Corrib. Native guides point out the grave of King Roderick in the aisle of the abbey, but credible history says that his dust reposes in saintly Clonmacnois, on the banks of the Shannon. Near the abbey is a fine specimen of the Celtic stone cross, richly carved, commemorative of abbots who passed away hundreds of years ago. The processional Cross of Cong, one of the grandest specimens of early Irish art, is preserved in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin.

In the later Middle Ages the ABBEYKNOCKMOY house fell under the control of the O’Kelly family. Elaborate mural paintings can be found on the arch which covers the tomb of Malachy O’Kelly, lord of Uí Maine (d. 1401) and his wife Fionnuola (d. 1403). On the wall to the east of the O’Kelly tomb was another mural divided into two registers.

In 1542 Hugh O’Kelly, abbot in commendam, surrendered the abbey to the king’s officials but successfully defended his possessions by acknowledging the supremacy of King Henry VIII. In return he was granted the abbey and his lands for life. Following the Dissolution, a form of secularised monasticism seems to have continued at the abbey. Today a substantial portion of the church and claustral buildings survive although they have suffered damage from grave-digging around the site. Abbeyknockmoy is one of the most impressive Cistercian monuments in Ireland.