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Carmelite History
About 1334 Robert Fitzrichard Balrain a Norman Knight somehow became acquainted with the Carmelite Hermits who had fled Mt. Carmel in the Holy Land during the Saracen Invasion.
Balrain had bulit St. Mary's Abbey in Kinsale and offered it along with 29 acres of land in the Liscahan area of the town to the Carmelite Hermits who would attend to the pastoral care of the people and administer the land and other pertinent matters in the town. The hermits were closely associated with the local Leprosia. They also helped in obtaining Kinsale's Charter.
The hermits obtained their water supply from a nearby well to the north east of Abbey on its right-hand side called 'Fan na Tubraide' and reputed to have given Kinsale it's name. Come 1380 a town wall was constructed and in that same year the hermits were officially embraced into the 'Friar Movement'. The Friars were granted their own gate called Friar's Gate that made access to the town centre easier for them and for their ministrations therein. The town wall remained standing until it's destruction in 1690 while the gates remained in use until 1794 when it (Friar's Gate) and Nicholas' Gate (Blind Gate) were removed leaving just nearby Cork Gate standing until 1805.
In the meantime the Friars continued to attend to the pastoral and material needs of the local people which they continued to do right up to the Suppression of the Monasteries and beyond.