Cavan, County Cavan
Photograph: 瑞丽江的河水 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
County Cavan · Ulster

Cavan

An Cabhán

'the hollow'

The story

The county town of the O'Reilly lordship of East Bréifne, in a country of small lakes and drumlins where the Erne rises. Cavan was where the defeated Ulster army retreated after Benburb, and where its Franciscan friary was later burned.

Worth seeing nearby
  • Clones · Tigernach’s 6th-century monastery. A round tower, a stone sarcophagus said to be the saint’s, and a five-metre high cross whose shaft was carved between 825 and 875 — the head added later, by other hands.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.

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