Product Description
When did the friars come to Athlone? Where in Athlone is the site of the first friary? Is is true that the church in the Old Abbey graveyard was, in fact, never completed? These and other questions indicated how helpful it would be to have the story of the friars in Athlone told in one continuous narrative. Such a book would place on record the story of the past and provide a younger generation with an insight into such local names as Sli an Aifrinrt, Friars Island and Bethlehem on the shores of Lough Ree. Fr Fergal Grannell, O.F.M. has now provided us with such a history.
G.K. Chesterton comparing progress to the movement of a wheel noted that it can move forward only if part of it moves backwards. By returning to the past we can throw light on the present and move towards a future that, hopefully, will be guided by the lessons of history. In this history of the friars in Athlone the author takes us along a journey that begins with their arrival in the town in the first part of the 13th century and continues to the present day. The road we travel, spanning over seven hundred years, is not, however, a highway. It is rather a pathway winding its way through years of freedom, dispersal, sanctuary, persecution, recovery and renewal. The story is interwoven with the history of the town itself, and indeed of Ireland, as it came under the varying influences of political and religious upheavals.