In 1334 the local Earl, Robert Fitzrichard Balryain, entrusted St. Mary’s Abbey, which he had built along with adjoining portions of land, to the Carmelite friars. He had probably met on his travels with the Crusades.

The Carmelites at the Abbey were associated with the care of the sick in the local leprosia and with the pastoral and civil care of the local people inside and outside the town walls. They continued to minister to the local people until the Suppression of the Monasteries and the Battle of Kinsale in 1601.

Henry VIII suppressed the Abbey in 1543 after which time it was put to many uses. One of the uses was housing for the friars whose ministry to the people on the grounds of pastoral care was tolerated for a time. From 1567 onwards the property was leased to notable merchants and others. In 1601 the Abbey walls were breached by English troops who were fleeing from Tyrone’s army and wished to gain access to the town for ransacking.

Spanish Discalced Carmelite friars arrived in Kinsale in 1633 and claimed the Abbey as their Order’s heritage, restored the church and began celebrating Mass for the people. One December day in 1641, a platoon of English troops, wanting to gain entry to the town, bombarded the church during Mass killing the celebrant and the congregation beneath the falling rubble. The Discalced friars departed Kinsale in 1653.

After the Abbey’s sacking the people used to gathered at the nearby Abbey Well for Rosary and prayer services. Nearby, at the junction of the Bandon and Rock roads, the Carmelite friars (Calced) established a residence known as the olde Masshouse, where they celebrated mass and, thus, the faith was preserved.

Meanwhile the Carmelite friars “deemed foreigners by law“ were allowed to engage in pastoral activity among the people. They roamed the countryside sheltering in well-disposed and friendly locations and homesteads. They stayed close to the people tending to their pastoral needs and celebrated the Sacraments for them in locations which have become well-known landmarks. They sheltered in caves and safe houses.

In May 1656, Cromwell’s forces ordered the 200 or so natives to leave the town. They settled on a level tract between the Rock Road and the Barrack Green where they built shelters for themselves. The 1660 Act of Restoration allowed the friars to reenter the town and they raised an altar on this site for celebrating Mass. Through the good offices of William Galwey, the landlord, the friars were able to obtain a site for their residence which was known as “ye olde Masshouse on ye Rock”.

The Act banishing Religious was reinforced in 1698 and the friars vacated the masshouse and reverted to the open spaces, lodging once again in friendly and well-disposed locations such as Ballintubber Woods and other well known spots farther afield.

In these surroundings, Fr. Tadhg O’Connell, O.Carm., an eminent scholar and native of Kinsale, translated La Trompette du Ciel (Trompa na Bhflaitheas) and Misterios del Monte Calvario into Gaelic (Irish) for the Gaelic speaking people as they lacked in their own mother tongue the knowledge and the material for salvation. Many other friars risked life and limb to minister spiritually to the people.

During the 1720s an air of tolerance towards Catholics prevailed and allowed the friars to return to their residence on Rathmore Beg. They found it difficult to rebuild their old residence the Masshouse.

In 1730 Francis Kearney, a landlord from nearby Garrettstown, offered the friars a site in the poorer section of the town among the weavers on Lower Catholic Walk and just below their old residence. In 1735 the Friars built a friary, a storehouse, a garden and a small church on the site. Fr. Patrick O’Mahoney, O.Carm. purchased the plot in 1737 and was appointed Prior in 1739. An attempt was made in 1744 to imprison Fr. O’Mahoney for owning land but he was exonerated through Kearney claiming ownership of the property. Later, in 1747, Fr. O’Mahoney was appointed Town Almoner.

The chapel was torched in 1786 by a group of inebriated soldiers who ran amok and set fire to the thatched roof. It may have been restored by Fr. Lawrence Callanan, a Carmelite novice from nearby Killbrittain, who had walked all the way from there to Kinsale to join the Carmelites. After study and ordination on the continent, Fr. Callanan became a well-known figure as he walked the roads on pastoral calls and prayed in the gallery of the chapel.

In the 1840s Fr. Callanan involved himself, along with Fr. Ludlum, O.Carm., in the construction of the famine time friary church which was financed with money which Fr. Ludlum collected in England for that purpose and also to help the local Mercy Sisters in their food relief fund.

In constructing a church the friars were able to provide employment, create a cash flow to purchase food in the family circle and thereby preserve human dignity in the area. The civil authorities embraced the same principle in the construction of the Kinsale to Bandon road along by the World’s End with the Famine Relief funds.

The church was built around the original chapel on the site. The facade consists of cut limestone hewn in Kilnacloona quarry on the Ringrone bank of the Bandon river and ferried across to be hauled up to the friary site. During the 1870’s a pentagonal sanctuary was added to the building by Frs. Parr and Southwell. Fr. Southwell was sent to South America and may have contributed financial help towards the local Kinsale building projects. In this period the interior of the church was plastered, a timber ceiling and a timber work gallery exhibiting all the skills of the local shipbuilders.

The beautiful stained glass windows of the sanctuary (left to right) are as follows:

Sts. Patrick and Brigid - Carmelite Saints. John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila. Andrew Corsini and Mary Magdeline di Pazzi. The Apostles Peter and Paul. In the tracepts are windows depicting the Annunciation of the Sacred Heart.

The side chapel has a beautiful marble statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, while over the main altar is the depiction of the Scapular Vision of Our Lady and St. Simon Stock. In recent years the sanctuary area was modified in order to face the congregation

Each of the walls of the pentagon has a beautiful imported stained glass window depicting a saint relevant to the worshippers orientation and these surround a centerpiece depicting the scapular vision in its Carmelite context.

Artist Collette Mills has painted Blessed Titus Brandsma near the entrance to the church. Blessed Titus visited this friary in the 1930’s to brush up his English before departing on a lecture tour of the United States. He was subsequently imprisoned and martyred at Dacau during the Second World War for his defence of a free press and church.

In 2003 plans were drawn up for the reconstruction and renewal of the friary house, which has served the Order for many years as a novitiate. The work was completed in 2006  under the direction of the then community of Frs. John Keating, Prior, Stan Hession and Bene O’Callaghan. The architect was Tom O’Sullivan and the art work in the chapel of the new spirituality centre is that of Pamela Hardesty.