Hill of Slane

The Hill of Slane, easily accessible, provides a vantage point from which to view a landscape containing some of Ireland's most historic sites.

There is much to stimulate the imagination and to speculate about concerning the hill itself.

Did Dagobert 11, King of Austrasia in Gaul 674 - 687 AD, spend his childhood being educated in the safety of the monastry of Slane, as oral tradition holds?

Who was Ochre, who, according to one medieval source, had a rath in Slane?

Was it Richard, Duke of York, Lord Leiutenant of Ireland 1447 - 1460, who had the arms of England and France planted in the walls of the monastry here?

The Friary and Collage

The ruined buildings on the top of the Hill of Slane are remains of a 1512 reconstruction of the old monastry which the Fleming family re-built for the Franciscans.

The church has a fine west tower, about 19m high, with an earlier gothic-style window.

The collage, a separate building forming a quadrangle, housed four priests, four lay brothers and four choristers.

Look for a number of carved heads and gargoyles.

The Fleming arms are on the west wall of the quadrangle, and over the entrance in the southwest wall are the arms of England and France, referred to above.

The friary was dissolved only 30 years later as the Reformation took effect in Ireland.

In 1631 the Flemings tried again to restore it, but in less than 20 years the newly-installed Capuchin monks were driven out by Cromwell.

It was finally abandoned as a place of worship in 1723.

The Bishop's Tomb

The original monastry on the top of the Hill of Slane is believed to have been founded by St. Erc.

In the graveyard two stones shaped like gabel-ends ar the remains of a tomb or reliquary of great antiquity known as Erc's Tomb or the Bishop;s Tomb.

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The Paschal Fire

There is only oral tradition to support the legend that St. Patrick lit the fir on the Hill of Slane to celebrate Easter in the year 433 AD.

Patrick's fire challenged the Pagan law that forbade the lighting of any other fire while the festive fire at Tara still burned.

Erc supported Patrick against the druids, and the High King Laoghaire allowed Patrick to continue his work of preaching christianity throughout Ireland.