Monasterevin, Mainistir Eimhín, Co. Kildare

Mainistir Eimhín · Co. Kildare

Where a canal rides over a river, and two great artists came to rest.

Monasterevin is a working canal town in south Kildare where the Grand Canal crosses the River Barrow - not alongside it, but over it, on a limestone aqueduct built in the 1820s. That is the first thing worth knowing. The second is that for twelve years in the early twentieth century, the house on the edge of town was home to John McCormack, the Irish tenor whose voice was one of the most famous on earth. He was buried in Dublin but he lived here. These two facts - the canal junction and McCormack - are what Monasterevin is, and they are enough.

Between 1886 and 1888, Gerard Manley Hopkins came here to stay with the Cassidy family at Monasterevin House. Hopkins was a Jesuit priest and the most technically ambitious poet writing in English at the time, though almost nobody knew it yet - he published almost nothing in his lifetime. He was also frequently exhausted and ill, worn down by his work in Dublin. Monasterevin restored him. He wrote in a letter that the place was 'one of the props and struts of my existence'. That the same small town produced this comfort for both Hopkins and McCormack - one an English Jesuit poet, one an Irish Catholic tenor; one obscure, one world-famous - is the kind of coincidence that does not feel like coincidence.

The town itself is straightforward: a main street, a few pubs, a canal harbour, and a maze of waterways with bridges at intervals. There is no heritage trail with signs telling you what to think. The aqueduct is at the south end of town; you walk to it and stand beside it and the canal sits overhead and the Barrow passes underneath and that is genuinely strange and worth five minutes of attention. Moore Abbey is now the Muiríosa Foundation, a residential home for adults with intellectual disabilities, and is not publicly accessible. The town is not trading on its past. It is just a town that happens to have an unusual past.

Population

~3,000

Pubs

6and counting

Walk score

Town bridges loop in 30 minutes; Barrow Way from the harbour door

Founded

c. 6th century (St. Eimhín)

Coords

53.1333° N, 6.9833° W

01 / 10

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 McCormack's house

The world's greatest tenor lived here.

John McCormack - the Irish tenor who sold out Carnegie Hall and sang for Pope Pius XI - chose Moore Abbey as his home from 1925 to 1937. He recorded albums in the Great Hall. He was buried in Dublin, but this was where he rested.

Stories & lore → 02 The canal junction

Two waterways meet here. One rides over the other.

The Grand Canal arrives from Dublin, crosses the River Barrow on a three-arched limestone aqueduct, and carries on south. Seven bridges of various ages and characters cross the water in and around the town. It is a genuinely unusual piece of engineering to stand beside.

Walks & outings → 03 Hopkins's retreat

A Jesuit poet called it a prop and strut of his existence.

Gerard Manley Hopkins visited Monasterevin seven times between 1886 and 1888, staying at Monasterevin House with the Cassidy family. He wrote poems here. He described the place and the hospitality as essential to keeping him going. Both the poet and the Irish tenor found the same thing in this canal town.

Stories & lore →

02 / 10

The pubs.

None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:

Finlay's Bar

Locals first, live music weekends

Traditional pub & off-licence

The most talked-about pub in town. Traditional in the right ways - decent pint, proper bar, live music at weekends. Not doing anything complicated.

Mooneys

Old-school, no fuss

Pub & grocery, Main Street

On Main Street, the kind of pub that has been the centre of the town since before anyone currently drinking there was born. The Guinness is the point.

Brennan's

Quiet, reliable

Local pub

A second pub for the town's quiet end. Goes about its business without fuss.

The Venice of Ireland Tavern

Canal-side, informal

Pub & B&B

The name is the one concession to brochure prose in a town otherwise free of it. The pub itself is straightforward. Also has rooms.

03 / 10

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
Finlay's Bar	Pub food	€€	The kitchen covers the standard pub menu without embarrassment. Worth stopping if you are walking the Barrow Way and need feeding.
Athy or Kildare Town	Note	-	For a proper restaurant dinner, Athy is 16km south and has more options. Monasterevin feeds itself mainly through its pubs. That is honest and fine.

04 / 10

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
Cloncarlin House	B&B	A bed and breakfast on the Nurney Road, close to the canal and River Barrow. Straightforward, well-regarded.
Old Station House	B&B	On the edge of town, a few minutes from the Gerard Manley Hopkins Monument and the canal harbour. Good base for the Barrow Way.
The Venice of Ireland Tavern	Pub with rooms	Above the bar. Central, simple. If you want to be in the middle of the town, this is it.
Stay Barrow Blueway - The Stables	Self-catering	A self-catering option with a garden and kitchenette, positioned for the Barrow Blueway. The canal towpath is the front garden, effectively.

05 / 10

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

The tenor and Moore Abbey

John McCormack

John McCormack was born in Athlone in 1884 and became one of the most celebrated voices in the world - opera, oratorio, Irish song, American popular music. He performed at Carnegie Hall, sang for two popes, and recorded hundreds of records. From 1925 to 1937 he lived at Moore Abbey, the Gothic revival house on the edge of Monasterevin, with his wife Lily and their children. He recorded albums in the Great Hall. In 1931 he filmed scenes there for 'Song of My Heart', the first sound film made in Ireland. He was created a Papal Count in 1928 - hence 'Count McCormack'. He died in 1945 and is buried at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin. Moore Abbey is now the Muiríosa Foundation. The town holds the memory quietly.

Seven visits, one phrase that survives them all

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Hopkins visited Monasterevin at least seven times between 1886 and 1888, staying with the Cassidy family at Monasterevin House. He was at the time a Jesuit priest in Dublin, teaching at University College, and largely miserable - the city exhausted him, his poetry was going nowhere he could see, and his health was poor. Monasterevin was where he recovered. He called the place and its hospitality 'one of the props and struts of my existence'. He died in Dublin in 1889, aged 44. His poetry was published posthumously by his friend Robert Bridges in 1918, and by then it was clear that Hopkins had been one of the most original poets of the Victorian era. The Monasterevin Hopkins Society has run an annual festival celebrating the connection since 1988, typically in late July.

Canal over river, built in the 1820s

The aqueduct

The Grand Canal reached Monasterevin in 1786, but the problem of crossing the River Barrow remained awkward for decades - boats had to be lowered into the river and then hauled back up, which was slow and unreliable. The solution was the limestone aqueduct completed in 1827/28, built by the contractors Henry, Mullins and McMahon. Three arches carry the canal over the Barrow, high enough for river traffic to pass beneath. A manually operated drawbridge at the road crossing functioned until 1982 - the only such drawbridge on the entire Grand Canal system. Stand at the towpath at the south end of town and the strangeness of the thing is apparent: the river is below you, the canal is at your feet, and they are the same water at different heights with different purposes.

The monastery that named the town

Saint Eimhín and Rosglas

In the sixth century, a monk from Munster named Eimhín established a monastic settlement at this River Barrow crossing, at a place called Rosglas - 'green wood'. The settlement gained sanctuary status, placing it outside common law, and the fame of Eimhín's bell spread across the surrounding territory. Vikings destroyed the original monastery in the ninth century. The Cistercians built a substantial abbey on the site in 1189, founded under the patronage of Dermot O'Dempsey - the Abbey of Rosglas became one of the wealthier religious houses in Leinster, with its abbots holding seats in the Irish Parliament. The abbey was surrendered to Henry VIII in 1541. The town's name is the memorial: Mainistir Eimhín, the monastery of Eimhín.

06 / 10

Music, by day of the week.

Schedules drift. This is roughly right. The real answer is "ask in the first pub you find."

Fri

Finlay's Bar - live music, check Facebook for acts

Sat

Finlay's Bar - live music most Saturdays

07 / 10

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

Grand Canal Harbour & Aqueduct Loop Start at the canal harbour in town. Follow the towpath south to the aqueduct, cross the road, look down at the Barrow beneath you, look up at the canal level. Carry on past the old lifting bridge. Come back through the town and count the bridges. Seven is the accepted number but it depends what you count.

3 kmdistance

45 mintime

Barrow Way - Monasterevin to Athy The Barrow Way is a long-distance walking trail that follows the Barrow Line canal south from Monasterevin to Athy and beyond, eventually reaching St. Mullins in Carlow. The Monasterevin to Athy section - sixteen kilometres or so - is the easiest entry point: flat, well-signed, passing old locks and canal houses. Get a lift back or build in the return.

23 km one waydistance

Full daytime

Count John McCormack Way - Moore Abbey Woods A looped forest walk through the Coillte-managed woodland around Moore Abbey that carries the tenor's name. The abbey building itself is not open to the public, but the woods are. The walk also passes the Gerard Manley Hopkins Monument, a quiet memorial in the right kind of setting.

2 kmdistance

30 mintime

Town Bridges Loop A short walk through the town crossing bridges as you go. The waterways here are plural and tangled - the Grand Canal's Barrow Line, the now-derelict Mountmellick Branch, the Barrow itself. The maze is the point. No single bridge is the destination.

2 kmdistance

25 mintime

08 / 10

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Canal and river at their liveliest. The Barrow Way is quiet. Good light in the mornings on the water.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The Hopkins Festival runs in late July. Canal boat traffic is up. The McCormack Way walk through the woods is at its best in June.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

The Moore Abbey woods go well in October. The canal towpath is almost empty. The pubs go back to themselves.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

The Barrow can flood the lower towpath. The town is a town, not a tourist destination, so it does not half-shut - but there is less reason to make a specific trip.

◐ Mind yourself

09 / 10

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Calling it 'the Venice of Ireland'

A pub in town uses the name and a local waterways history website uses it too. It is a marketing description from the nineteenth century that trades on the canal junction and the many bridges. Monasterevin does not need the comparison and neither do you.

Expecting to visit Moore Abbey

It is the Muiríosa Foundation, a residential care facility. The grounds are private. The McCormack Way walk goes through the adjacent woods and is the right way to approach it. Respect the boundary.

Driving straight through on the M7

The motorway bypass means most people never see the town. The canal harbour is two minutes off the main road. The aqueduct is another two. Both are genuinely worth ten minutes of your time.

Coming just for the food

The pubs cover the basics. If you want a restaurant dinner, Athy is 16km south and has more. Plan accordingly.

Getting there.

By car

Monasterevin is on the R445 (old N7) just off the M7 motorway, exit 14. Dublin is 65km - about 50 minutes in decent traffic. Athy is 16km south. Kildare town is 14km northeast.

By bus

Bus Éireann routes connecting Dublin to Portlaoise and Limerick stop at Monasterevin. Journey time from Dublin Busáras is around 1 hour. Check real-time at transportforireland.ie.

By train

Monasterevin has no train station. The nearest stations are Kildare (14km) and Portarlington (10km), both on the Dublin Heuston to Cork/Limerick main line. A taxi or connection bus covers the gap.

Next on the tour

Co. Kildare

Athy

Sixteen kilometres south on the Barrow Way. A proper market town with a Dominican priory, a heritage centre, and more of the same canal.

Co. Kildare

Kildare

Fourteen kilometres northeast. The cathedral, the round tower, the Japanese Gardens, and the Irish National Stud. A different kind of Kildare day.

Co. Kildare

Kildangan

Ten kilometres north. A small village and the entrance to Kildangan Stud - the heartland of Kildare horse country.

Co. Kildare

Kilberry

North up the Barrow valley, a scattered parish carrying a lost saint and two ruined castles.