In May of 2016 my family and I took a trip to the British Isles for two weeks. The second week of our trip we stayed in a little village in the Republic of Ireland called Adare or Ath Dara in Irish Gaelic. In the center of Adare is a medieval Trinitarian monastery that is still used as a church today.
During medieval times, the monks from the monastery would raise or grow much of what they needed to survive on the monastery grounds. Pigeons were a common food source, especially on feast days.
Pigeons were kept in a dovecote at the back corner of the monastery. The dovecote was a round stone building with a hole in the roof for the pigeons to fly in and out of. The monks built the dovecote in the fourth century.
Inside of the dovecote are square holes for the pigeons to roost, nest, and raise their squabs. The monks could enter the dovecote through a door in the front in order to gather eggs and take care of the birds.
Today, Catholic priests still grow their own food on the old monastery grounds behind the church. However, they no longer raise pigeons in the dovecote. The dovecote has been saved and turned into a tourist attraction for the village of Adare and the Trinity Church.
Next door to the Trinitarian monastery’s dovecote is now a restaurant called the Dovecote in honor of the once active pigeon industry. However, when we looked we did not see pigeon or squab on the menu.
Down the road from the Trinitarian monastery is a brother friary of the Augustinian order that is used today as a school and is a part of The Church of Ireland. During medieval times the Augustinian monks also raised pigeons. The friary visitor’s brochure said that there was a dovecote one-hundred feet from the church building; however, we were unable to find it during our visit.
Even though we didn’t get to see pigeons being raised in dovecotes like they did in the middle ages, we did get to see wild pigeons. In the field beside the church and along the Maigue River walk we saw several wood pigeons eating bugs in the grass. We had never seen wood pigeons before. They were very beautiful.
We really enjoyed our trip to Adare, Ireland. It made us feel more at home when we discovered that there had once been fellow pigeon lovers living and raising pigeons right where we were standing. We were very excited to have the opportunity to see how medieval pigeons once lived.
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