In the 12th century, the O'Briens, who were Kings of Thomond, left their seat of power in Limerick and built a royal residence at Clonroad on what was then an island. The town contains a number of old military barracks, most notably the Old Military Barracks on the Kilrush road. You can also book your tickets!The name Ennis comes from the word "Inis", meaning an island. In the following pages you will find some suggestions of places that might like to visit in Ireland and England which have relevance to Crowe family history. Ennis, Co. Clare , Ireland. The Clare Museum is also in a former convent, and documents 6,000 years of history in County Clare. In 1828, O’Connell was returned to parliament in the Clare Elections, an historic event which led to the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829.Although the 1832 cholera epidemic seriously affected Ennis, it was the Great Famine of 1845-49 and its aftershock that reduced the population most considerably, with many sponsored by the local absentee landlord George Wyndham to emigrate to Canada. Incorporated in 1612, it is now controlled by an urban district council. The town of Ennis in County Clare is sure to spark your imagination if you’re into history.Strewn across the landscape are the decaying ruins of Medieval abbeys, friaries and castles accessible to the public and ready to be investigated.Most of these have been disintegrating slowly since the 16th century, but Ennis Friary in the town has been restored and has a riveting exhibition of 15th-century religious sculpture.The Clare Museum is also in a former convent, and documents 6,000 years of history in County Clare.North of Ennis is the Burren, an otherworldly karst landscape laid with swathes of limestone pavement and a habitat for seven tenths of all plant species growing in Ireland.In the atmospheric confines of the former Sisters of Mercy Convent is a museum documenting six millennia of history in County Clare.This free museum opened its doors in 2000 and has many artefacts on loan from the National Museum of Ireland.The main exhibition is the Riches of Clare, which is divided into the themes, Earth, Power, Faith, Water and Energy.There are pieces recovered from Clare’s many castles and monastic sites, memorabilia for the former president Éamon de Valera who represented the Clare constituency, historical details about navigation on the Shannon Estuary, recollections of the old West Clare Railway and artefacts from the Spanish Armada.One of the most interesting exhibits is a primary source from the Irish War of Independence and Civil War, in the form of the journal of Irish Republican Leader Patrick Brennan who was interned in 1916.Head north of Ennis and in 15 minutes you’ll enter one of the most spectacular glaciated karts landscapes on the planet.The image that most people associate with the Burren is the huge spread of limestone pavement, which has an almost alien quality and is creased with “grikes” or fissures.The landscape is also famed for its amazing botanical diversity.More than 70% of all plant species found in Ireland grow on the grasslands and in those grikes, along with Arctic and Alpine plants that flourish in the places where the limestone pavement has been shattered into gravel.The Burren National Park has five waymarked trails beckoning you across the limestone pavement, the florid limestone grassland and into hazel and ash forest.Moments on foot from the Clare Museum stands the ruined Ennis Friary.Founded by the O’Brien clan in the mid-13th century, Ennis Friary is unusual in that it continued to function after Henry VIII suppressed the monasteries in the 16th century.It became a Church of Ireland temple in the 1600s, and only started to decay when it was abandoned at the end of the 1800s.Now Ennis Friary is back in the hands of the Franciscan order, and is open to the public.Because it was maintained for so long after its dissolution, a lot of Medieval fittings remain, which you can see inside the re-roofed nave.There’s a marvellous cycle of 15th-century carvings showing the Passion and Resurrection, a damaged but beautiful pietà (Mary cradling the body of Christ), and the MacMahon-Creagh tomb from 1470, depicting Passion scenes.Once the base of the O’Dea clan, O’Dea Castle is a fortified tower house that went up at the end of the 15th century.The tower is 15 metres high and surveys the countryside from its limestone crag.You can go up to the roof to preside over the terrain from the battlements, while the ten rooms below are a museum with local artefacts dating between 1000 BC and 1700 AD. Original artefacts here tell the tale of Clare over the millennia, with recent displays ranging from a 19th-century well, to Daniel O’Connell and Eamon De Valera – local parliamentarians both. A Franciscan abbey, founded about 1242, is a national monument. Situated at the heart of the county on a bend in the River Fergus, Ennis is the capital of County Clare. The name Ennis comes from the Irish word "Inis", meaning "island". Bernard Ennis abt 1830 Ireland - 09 Nov 1879 managed by Sharon Rodman last edited 28 Jun 2017. Monument to Daniel O’Connell A good starting point would be Daniel O’Connell’s monument right in the middle of the Ennis Business District.

Ennis received a grant to hold fairs and markets from King James I in 1610 and in 1613 received a Charter for a Corporation with a Provost, Free Burgesses, Commonalty and a Town Clerk. There are a number of hotels around Ennis that have their own leisure facilities including gyms and 15m to 20m pools. This is just a taster, but shows how there’s something to suit most ages and tastes at Glór.Ennis is a joy if you love hunting down abandoned monuments, and you can pore over the remnants another abbey in a bucolic valley just south of the town.Killone Abbey was an Augustinian nunnery of Canonesses Regular, set up in 1190 at the same time as Clare Abbey.It was dissolved in 1584 and was already decaying by the 1610s.But 400 years later there’s loads for amateur archaeologists to sink their teeth into: First off, Killone Abbey is one of only three cloistered nunneries left in Ireland.On the church wall there’s a stunning late-Romanesque window, while on the southeastern corner is an ornate quoin carved in the shape of a woman’s head.To the northeast of the abbey is St John’s Well, bearing an inscription that tells you it was last repaired in 1731 by Anthony Roche, a merchant from Ennis.At the southeast limit of the Burren, the Dromore Woodland Reserve is 400 hectares of forest, grassland, rivers and lakes that was purchased by the Irish state in the 1940s.Dromore is a habitat for eight of the nine Irish bat species, as well as the endangered pine marten and the red squirrel, now rarely found in other parts of the country.There’s also a lot of archaeological interest: On your walk you’ll see the ruins of the O’Brien Castle on the lakeshore, as well as a crumbling limekiln, the earthworks of two ringforts and the tower of Cahermacrea Castle.An obligatory day out, this 15th-century tower house is on the N18 on the road down to Limerick.Bunratty Castle is a National Monument of Ireland, standing just where the Ratty River joins the Shannon Estuary.The castle is the fourth on site and was begun in 1425 by the chieftain Maccon Sioda MacNamara.By the end of the 19th century the building had become derelict until it was bought and restored in 1956 by the 7th Viscount Gort.To recapture the spirit of its heyday, the interior has been furnished with paintings, tapestries and furniture from the 1500s and 1600s.Out in the 10-hectare grounds is a folk park, with 30 historic buildings that have been relocated here to give a sense of 19th-century Irish village life.There’s a school, post office, grocery, printworks, hardware shop, drapery shop, pub, and even the old Ardcroney Church, which was moved here in 1998.In a room next to Ennis’ public library is a slice of Irish 20th-century history.This vehicle is the presidential limousine of Éamon de Valera, who was head of the Irish government for three separate spells in the mid-20th century and later took on the ceremonial role of President of Ireland.The car, a 1947 Dodge Plymouth, was restored by the mechanic and Clare County Councillor P. J. Ryan, who sourced parts like the battery and tyres from across the Atlantic.The car can seat eight people and on its bonnet are the Irish tricolour and the presidential flag.A leisurely way to break out into the undulating countryside around Ennis is on one of the two manicured parkland courses in the outskirts.These are Ennis Golf Club, founded in 1907, and Woodstock Golf & Country Club, both of which cater to visitors.These two courses blend with the natural contours, landforms and vegetation of the Clare landscape: Woodstock is on the banks of the Inch River, and the tricky 7th and 8th holes have a natural lake as a water hazard.At Ennis Golf Club the even fairways will forgive players who haven’t swung an iron for a while, provided you can avoid the deep foliage in the rough.If you’re holidaying in Ennis with kids you could make a young dream come true at one of the equestrian centres just out in the countryside.At Ballyhannon House, Drumcliffe Equestrian and Castlefergus Equestrian you can book beginner lessons or treks on Irish-bred horses and ponies.All three are open to complete novices and anyone up to advanced riders.Castlefergus for instance had 40 hectares of land on the River Rine, where you can ride in rolling meadows and farmland, along an ancient forest trail, all in the company of experienced riders.Out to the west you can get onto a tourist trail that twists along the entire west coast of Ireland for 2,500 kilometres.Naturally you don’t have to go that far, because some special places lie within an hour’s drive.First there’s the breathtaking Cliffs of Moher, zigzagging northwest for 14 kilometres and rising to 214 metres.From their highest point you can see over the Aran Islands in Galway Bay, and as far as the Twelve Bens Mountain Range to the north.Further down in Kilkee there are yet more dark sandstone bluffs and an adorable sandy bay.Loop Head is a dramatic promontory capped with a lighthouse at the north lip of the Shannon Estuary.And then a few kilometres along the estuary at Carrigaholt you can board a boat to look for one of Europe’s largest pods of bottlenose dolphins.