15 / 29Recorded history
c.1540 · Dissolution of the religious houses
A religious landscape is dismantled
Henry VIII’s dissolution of religious houses transformed Dundalk’s institutions and property. A surviving extent of St Leonard’s hospital describes its lands and buildings; research using this record places its surrender in November 1540. Such documents turn an apparently vanished foundation into a recoverable part of the town’s history. They also show why a hospital’s functions must be investigated from evidence, rather than assumed from a saint’s dedication.↗1
Why it matters here
Read the full chapter Ruins and documentary fragments preserve the effects of the Reformation on Dundalk’s buildings, property and communal life.
