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| HOLY CROSS ABBEY, COUNTY TIPPERARY. -This beautiful and romantically environed monastic ruin is situated on the verdant bank of the charming River Suir, about eight miles almost due northward from Cashel. The foundation of this once magnificent temple is usually credited to Donald O'Brien, surnamed the Red, King of Limerick, who built it for a community of Citercian monks in 1182. The abbey is of cruciform design, gothic in character and contains many ancient tombs elaborately carved, and other objects of great interest to the curious. It was called the Abbey of the True Holy Cross, because, in 1110, Pope Pascal II. presented a portion of the True Cross, about two and a half inches long by half an inch in width, to Murrough, or Murtogh O'Brien, Ard Righ (High King) of Ireland, great grandson of King Brian of Kinkora, popularly called Brian Boru, who expelled the Danish power from the island at the battle of Clontarf in 1014, himself falling in the very moment of victory. The relic, richly gemmed and enclosed in an archiepiscopal cross, is said to be still in existence, although it has been frequently imperiled since the Reformation. Edward Bruce, crowned King of Ireland, visited the abbey in 1316, while en route to Cashel, and the great Hugh O'Neill worshiped there in 1599. |
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