Along the river Barrow lays the quiet and picturesque market town of Monasterevin, once home to the famous Irish tenor Count John McCormick. Less than an hour’s drive away from Dublin, Monasterevin is a flat expanse of country, situated in County Kildare, on the west side of Wicklow Mountain Range and is known as the Venice of Ireland. It gets its name from the Monastery of St. Eimphin’s which was built in the 6th Century. Eventually this was replaced in the 12th Century by a grander house built by the Prince of Offaly. This house disappeared and Moore Abbey was built in 1607. The tenor McCormick rented the house for 9 years and it now serves as a convent, belonging to the Sisters of Charity.
Another famous resident of Monasterevin was the Victorian Poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins. During the last week of July, Monasterevin hosts an International Literary Festival to celebrate this great poet. Hopkins had spent five and a half years in Ireland while he was teaching in the newly founded Catholic University (now University College) in Dublin. During his frequent visits to Monasterevin, Hopkins declared that he ‘felt better for the delicious bog air’ there and he described the locals as ‘kind people at a nice place’. He was usually a guest of a Miss Cassidy, an elderly lady living in the house opposite the Hopkins Monument, and the Cassidy tradition of hospitality is ongoing even to the present day. Each year the Presentation Sisters, who are the present owners of the Cassidy House, welcome Hopkins Festival visitors for a poetry reading session. Monasterevin is a charming place to visit and you are sure to fall in love with it as Gerard Manley Hopkins once did. Sporting activities at Monasterevin include the Gaelic Athletic Association, badminton, golf, boating, angling, and shooting.
