Holywood Priory

The monastery was founded on the site by St Laiseran before 640. The early settlement was associated with the nearby Bangor Abbey, where Laiseran is said to have studied under Comgall. The site was later known as Sanctus Boscus or Sanctus Nemus, and appears in early medieval records, including a reference to King John of England halting there in 1210. The present ruins date primarily from a late 12th- or early 13th-century Anglo-Norman Augustinian abbey built by Thomas Whyte. Following the Black Death (1348–1350), the church was refurbished by Niall O’Neill for the Franciscan Order. The priory was dissolved on New Year’s Day 1541 during the reign of Henry VIII. Its lands passed first to the…

The surviving structure is a stone church dating mainly from the late 12th or early 13th century. It consists of a nave and chancel without structural division, measuring approximately 22.5 metres by 6 metres internally, with a west tower. The building was originally entered from the south, but the west end was rebuilt in the 15th century with a new entrance and an enlarged east window. The upper stages of the tower were added in the early 19th century.